Stigmatized
by redsandman99
Summary: It was a secret Jeff had kept for thirteen years. It was a secret that haunted him and plagued his dreams. But when Matt finds out, the Hardys lives go down a path neither of them ever expected to be on.
1. Chapter 1

_Thirteen years ago_

Jeff's POV

I woke up to the sound of somebody stumbling in the front door. At first I got kind of scared that someone was breaking in, but then I remembered that Matt had gone out partying to celebrate Shane's twenty first birthday with him. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, almost laughing as I heard Matt yelling drunkenly about stubbing his toe. My poor older brother was not going to make it into bed without some serious help, which I was planning to provide for him.

"Matt?" I said as I came out of my bedroom and went into the living room. "You okay?"

Matt almost fell on his ass as he tried to walk towards me. "Jeff," he slurred out. "The room's spinning Jeff. I'd like it to stop now."

I quickly caught him before he fell down to the ground. "Jesus Matt," I muttered as I started helping him towards his bedroom. "You had way too fucking much to drink."

"Did not," he said childishly. He was dragging his feet across the floor, making it really hard for me to get him in his room. "You drank too much."

"I've never even had a beer Matt," I told him. I opened his bedroom door and tried to drag him in there. "Can you please move your feet and help me out a little here?" I begged. "You're acting like you're dead weight or something."

Matt still wouldn't move his feet though. He just started staring at me with the strangest look on his face. "I feel funny Jeff," he said quietly.

I groaned and immediately started trying turn him around to lead him to the bathroom. "Well hold on a second," I ordered. "Don't barf on me, okay?"

"No, not that," he said as he shook his head.

"Well what's wrong then?"

He just kept looking at me like he had never seen me before in his life. I was actually starting to get really creeped out by the way he was acting. Just as I was thinking that I should never let him drink again, he did something I never expected him to do in a million years: he kissed me. And I'm not talking about a brotherly peck either. This was a full fledged, passionate (although kind of sloppy because he was drunk out of his mind) and tongue filled kiss.

"Matt what the hell are you doing?" I asked as I pushed him away. Actually I yelled that question at him, but I could get away with it because Dad was spending the night at his new girlfriend's house. "You can't--"

I never got a chance to finish my sentence. Matt grabbed me and started kissing me again. I tried to push him away from me, but he was stronger than I was. And as his lips moved from my lips to my neck, I felt my resistance slipping away from me. That just added to my confusion. Why was I letting him do this to me? Why was I letting my own brother lay me down on his bed and put his hands all over me? And why the hell was I liking it so damn much?

Matt quickly discarded our shirts and his jeans, leaving us both only in our boxers. I looked into his brown eyes and I had a feeling that there was a chance that he wasn't going to remember any of this tomorrow. But at the moment, that didn't really matter. What mattered was the fact that I could feel his arousal pressing up against me as he started looking for something in one of the drawers of his nightstand table and it made me groan out loud. "Matty…"

"Fuck it," he growled before he started kissing me again. I kissed him back, trying to defend my actions to myself by thinking that I really had no other choice. His kisses were too demanding to ignore. And to be honest, they kind of were. But deep down, I was enjoying what was happening to me. I didn't know why, because it was my BROTHER of all people that was doing this to me, but that didn't change the fact that now I was so hard that I could barely stand it.

I shivered as our boxers came off. I knew what direction this was going now, and my heart was pounding so hard in my chest that I couldn't breathe right. Matt put his fingers by my mouth and I sucked on them eagerly. He let me do that for about thirty seconds before taking his fingers back and using them to probe my entrance. I hissed and groaned as he started to stretch me. I had never done anything like this before in my life, and I was really hoping that he would be gentle with me. "Matt be careful," I whispered as he added a third finger.

Matt grinned at me as he continued to stretch me. "It's okay little brother," he assured me. "I'll take care of you." He took his fingers out of me, spit on his hand and then rubbed his dick, which was the best he could do because it didn't seem like he had any other kind of lube.

I relaxed my body as best I could as he entered me, but it still fucking hurt like hell. "Matt stop for a second," I begged quickly. I dug my nails into his back to indicate that I wasn't playing around with him. I really needed him to stop for a second.

He stopped, although the kisses he began placing on my neck and collar bone told me that he wasn't the same patient older brother he normally was when he was sober. I had to take a minute though to adjust to his size, or I knew damn well the experience was not going to be a pleasant one for me. "Okay," I finally said. "You can move."

He grunted at me and began thrusting into me, pinning my wrists down to the bed and roughly kissing me. It wasn't exactly the way I had imagined my first sexual experience gong down (and it definitely wasn't with someone who I thought it was going to be with) but I didn't exactly care. I needed Matt so badly that all thoughts of it being wrong were driven out of my head. "Matt…touch me," I begged.

His hand grabbed my forgotten dick and he stroked it as hard as he could, making me whimper underneath him. I moaned as I came all over his stomach, once again thankful that Dad was out of the house. Matt came just a second later, and he collapsed on top of me, finally passed out from both his drunkness and exhaustion. I let him lay on me for awhile before I pushed him off of me and slowly got up to my feet. My back and my ass hurt, but I managed to limp into the bathroom and wet a rag with warm water before going back to Matt's room. I cleaned both myself and Matt up and then I went back to my own room. I laid down on my bed and stared up at the ceiling, the events from just a few moments ago replaying themselves over and over again in my head…

XXXXXXXXX

_Present day_

I sighed as I woke up in a state of sexual frustration. I had dreamt about my one night with Matt again. It was amazing how one night when I was just eighteen years old could change me forever. Matt had woken up the next morning with no memory of what had happened between us. He hadn't even remembered how he had gotten home. I had kept my mouth shut, terrified of what he would do if he found out. I was supposed to be his little brother, nothing more, nothing less.

For thirteen years, I had kept the secret buried deep inside of me. For the first few years, I even tried to deny to myself that it had even happened. But my heart knew better, and it made me obsess about it every chance I got. I dreamt about it every night and it affected every romantic relationship I had tried to maintain since then. No other man could touch me like Matt; nobody could make me feel the way Matt did, nobody could fuck me like he did…

But because of the way I had buried my feelings for years, Matt was free from the burden of our one night together. He was now set to get married to Evan Bourne, and I was so jealous that I could barely stand it. I had liked Evan once, but that was before he started dating Matt. Now I hated the sight of him. But what I hated even more was the fact that I knew Matt truly loved him back. I had never seen him so happy, and it absolutely killed me because I wasn't the one he was happy with. He would never be mine, because even if he did know what we had done all those years ago, I doubted that he would ever let himself be with me. It would be "wrong" for us to be together because we were brothers. God I hated thinking that, but I knew that would be what he would say if I ever came clean to him about how I felt.

I punched my bed as hard as I could. To make everything worse, Matt was basically expecting me to be his best man at the wedding. He hadn't even asked me if I wanted to; he just automatically assumed I would do it. Now I had to find a way to get out of doing it, because I would break down if I had to be at the fucking wedding. I would break down completely and probably strangle Evan while I was at it. And that would be bad. That would get me arrested and sent to jail and I would probably be made into someone's bitch.

On the bright side, I would escape the whole Matt situation…oh God, what was I saying? I needed help. I needed serious, psychological help. Maybe I would just go to Mark for help. He was good at helping people. I could ask him to help me not strangle Evan for being with my brother. He's always liked me, so there was no reason he wouldn't. _I just hope he's in a helpful mood today_, I thought as I got out of bed. _Or I'm so screwed._


	2. Chapter 2

Matt's POV

I muttered to myself as I searched for both my fiancé and my little brother. Evan had apparently told Miz and Morrison that they could sit with Randy and Adam, which was something I wanted to avoid at all costs. The four of them together would cause all kinds of trouble, which was what I wanted to avoid on my wedding day. And as for Jeff, I wanted to find out what was wrong with him. I had always assumed that he would be right by my side for my wedding, but he had been acting like he didn't even want to show up that day. Evan has been convinced that Jeff hates him for awhile now, and it was only when I stopped to think about it that I realized Jeff really hadn't been acting right towards my future husband for awhile now. I needed to talk to him about that and get the air cleared before things got too out of control.

I finally did find Evan, but I found them in the clutches of two people who he did not need to be near: Hunter and Shawn. "What do you two think you're doing with my Evan?" I asked as I put my hands on my hips.

They just grinned at me. "Nothing," Hunter said way too innocently.

Evan quickly got away from them and ran over to me. "They want to take me shopping after the show tonight."

I frowned. "What kind of stores are open at night?"

"The best ones," Shawn informed me. "We want to help Evan pick out some special things for your honeymoon."

Oh God, not this crap again. The two of them were convinced that they needed to help Evan pick out some special stuff for the night he was finally going to be "deflowered". We had both tried to explain to them that Evan was not actually a virgin and we have had sex numerous times. But the two founding fathers of DX had listening problems.

Evan sighed. "If I go with you tonight, will you leave me alone about it?"

Hunter nodded. "Of course we will. We'll do whatever you want. Just trust us for one night."

"Fine, I'll do it."

"Yay!" Shawn cheered. He grabbed Hunter by the arm and started dragging him away. "Come on, we need to make a list of where we're taking him."

I shook my head as they disappeared. "Do you have any idea of what you've just agreed to?"

Evan sighed. "What else was I supposed to do? They've been at this for months now. I can't ignore them anymore." He wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his head against my body. "So where have you been?"

"Looking for you and Jeff?"

"Who'd you find first?"

"You."

"So you still haven't talked to him?"

"I've tried baby. I think he's avoiding me." And that was the honest to God's truth. Jeff had made himself as scarce as possible the past few days, and even if I was around him without Evan, he still tried to escape me. That probably meant he was upset with me too for some reason. Just thinking that made me upset too. What the hell had I done to him? I hadn't been quite as overprotective lately, I hadn't nagged at him for stuff he should have done weeks ago--but still he avoided me. "Maybe I should go talk to Mark," I said. "He'll know what to do."

Evan winced. "I don't know if I would go near him right now if I were you."

"Why?"

"Well some guy showed up looking for him and well…Mark looked like he was ready to kill him."

XXXXXXXX

Jeff's POV

I went into Mark's locker room without knocking. I was one of the few people who had permission to do that. In fact, Glenn was the only other person who did it (although I don't think he actually had permission--he just did it). Now usually I find Mark sitting in his chair, thinking about something or reading a magazine or something along those lines. But today, I found him punching a man right in the draw and screaming obscenities I never even knew existed. "Holy shit," I muttered.

Mark turned around to face me. "Jeff, now is not a good--"

The man that he had punched in the first place kicked him in the gut and then head butted him right in the face. This was shocking to me because I had never seen anyone take down Mark quite like that before. I tried to go check on Mark, but the stranger's eyes caught mine and I froze in my tracks. There was something wrong with his eyes. They were too dark and psychotic. I felt like he was sizing me up, and my fate rested on whether he perceived me as a threat or not.

Finally he smiled and took my hand. "James Lawson, at your service."

"Don't fucking touch him James," Mark growled. He got back up to his feet and wiped away some of the blood that was on his face.

"I'm just shaking his hand Marky," James said in a voice that was far from innocent. "You're always telling me I should be more polite."

I pulled my hand away from his and took a couple of steps back. This guy really gave me the creeps. "Mark, if this is a bad time--"

"Oh this is the perfect time," James insisted. He dragged me over to Mark and basically shoved the two of us together. "You two talk and I'll steal some money from Mark's bag."

Mark glared at him. "And I'm going to let you do that because…?"

"Because you still owe me two hundred dollars from two years ago."

Mark rolled his eyes. "Nosy bastard. You just want stick yourself in our conversation."

I stood up on my tip toes so I could whisper into Mark's ear. "Who the hell is this guy?"

He shook his head. "Friend…enemy…lover…ex-lover…it's complicated."

"Very complicated," James agreed.

"Okay," I said slowly. That didn't really answer my question, but I sensed I really didn't want to know much more than that. "Um, can we go somewhere and talk alone Mark?"

"Can we wait till Glenn gets back from the vending machine?" Mark asked. He was glaring daggers at James. "I can't trust this bastard to behave himself without supervision."

James's jaw dropped in shock. "Now that's offensive to me. What's the worst that I could possibly do on my own?"

"Well seeing as how I found you terrorizing the production crew earlier--"

"That was not terrorizing! I was just playing!"

"And then you wanted to pick up Evan Bourne and see how far you could toss him--"

"I was going to ask him nicely until you interrupted me! You let him get away."

In the midst of this very strange argument, I had almost forgotten why I had come to Mark in the first place. But at the mention of Evan's name, I remembered that I needed the Deadman's help. "I need your help getting out of Matt's wedding," I blurted out to Mark, effectively interrupting his reply. "I can't be a part of it."

"Why not?" Mark asked. "Matt and Evan really want you to be."

"Which one are you in love with?" James asked.

That took me by surprise. First of all, that was none of his business because I didn't even know him. And second of all, this guy seemed to be way too insightful for his own good. "What?"

"Which one are you in love with?" he repeated. "You're either in love with Evan or Matt."

"How would you even know that?"

"Intuition."

Mark rolled his eyes. "Matt's his brother and he doesn't even like Evan."

"Wait, you've noticed that?"

"Everyone's fucking noticed that. You've been hurting the poor kid's feelings and we all want to know why."

"Because he's in love with Matt," James stated.

Mark glared at him. "Did you not just hear what I told you? Matt is his brother."

"It is Matt," I confessed in a very small and very squeaky voice. I didn't even sound like myself. I turned a deep shade of red and ducked my head down. God, why did I even come here? This was not going the way I had planned for it to go.

"Yes!" James said triumphantly. "I knew it!"

Mark pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "Jesus Jeff, no wonder you've been walking around here looking like your puppy has been diagnosed with cancer. Have you talked to Matt yet?"

I gave him a horrified look. "I can't talk to him about this! He's going to freak out on me!"

"Well he's going to demand to know why you want out of the wedding!"

"You want out of the wedding?"

My jaw dropped as Matt let himself into the room. He was looking at me with a hurt look on his face. "Oh God no," I groaned.

"Wow, talk about awkward," James said. He had a big grin on his face. "You wrestlers have a very interesting sense of timing."

Mark punched him on the shoulder. "You know, just because I'm putting up with you while you visit doesn't mean that you need to start bugging everyone else."

Matt ignored their little conversation. His beautiful brown eyes were staring holes through me. "What is going on with you Jeff?" he asked. He was trying to keep his emotions under control but he wasn't doing a good job of it. "Why do you want out of the wedding?"

"I just don't want to be there, okay?" I said quietly. I tried to vacate the room as fast as my shaking legs could carry me, but Matt wasn't letting me go that easily.

"No, you are not walking away from me! I want to know what's going on with you Jeff. Did Evan make you mad in some way? Did he do something to make you hate him?"

_Yes!_ I wanted to scream. _He's with you! He has the one thing I can't have!_ "No," I lied, although I basically choked the word out. It was so hard for me to say because of the lump that was rising in my throat.

"Is it me then?" Matt asked. "Did I do something to piss you off?"

"Just let it go Matt," I pleaded desperately. "You're better off not knowing." I tried to leave again but he grabbed me and wouldn't let me go. "Damn it Matt! Let me go!"

"No," he snapped. "I'm not letting you leave until I get a good answer out of you."

I knew he wasn't kidding about that, which scared me. I couldn't let him find out the truth. If he found out how I felt, I knew he would hate me. I just knew he would. "Get off of me!" I yelled. I tried to get free from him but he wasn't letting go. Desperate to get the hell out of there and avoid this whole situation, I kicked him right in the knee and slipped out of his grip while he was distracted by his pain. I ran out of the room as fast I possibly could. I needed to get as far away from Matt as I possibly could before I did something I knew I would regret later on.

XXXXXX

Mark's POV

"Jeff get back here!" Matt shouted as he hobbled out of the room. "You get back here this instant and talk to me!"

I sighed and shook my head. Why was this shit always happening in my locker room? Couldn't people take their drama somewhere else? "Matt will freak the fuck out if he finds out Jeff's secret." I looked at James, and I could tell that the crazy bastard scheming and plotting something. "Oh no, don't fucking tell me you're going to stick your nose into this. This isn't our business."

"Oh come on Marky," James said as he took a toothpick out of his pocket and put it in his mouth. "I just want to help."

"Your version of helping is never that helpful," I growled. I sat down in my chair and watched him carefully. As much as I wanted to help Jeff, I had a feeling I was going to spend more time trying to keep James from helping. Bad things would only come from him helping, even if his intentions were good (they weren't most of the time though). "We're staying out of this one, okay?"

I didn't get an answer, which told me that we were both going to end up getting involved in this mess. I sighed and buried my face in my hands. Fucking hell, I was too fucking old to get involved in this bullshit.

**XXXXXXX**

**Damn that took longer to write than I thought it was going to. Before I get asked, James is an OC of mine that I decided to add in to stir the pot a little between Matt and Jeff (and to drive Mark up the wall, which is always fun) His muse was bugging me the entire time I was writing this. If you've read Bound by Blood/And the Blood Rains Down/Blood in the USA or Blood and Memories, then you've seen him before (and no, he's not related to Jeff this time but he's still completely insane).**


	3. Chapter 3

Matt's POV

Jeff pretty much left the building after our little conversation. I was so pissed at him that I couldn't think straight. My damn little brother had lost his mind. That was the only reasonable explanation that I could come up with. He had really just lost his damn mind.

Once Shawn and Hunter had taken Evan, I decided to once again go searching for Jeff. I was going to clear the air between us whether he liked it or not. I searched and searched for about forty five minutes before I found him at a bar with James. Now the rumor in the locker room earlier had been that Mark hadn't wanted to let James out of his sight for safety reasons, but here he was, Markless, and he was just feeding Jeff and himself shot after shot after shot of vodka. I went over to their table and sat down with them. "We need to talk," I told Jeff.

Jeff immediately tried to bail. "Fuck that!"

James grabbed him by the arm and made him sit down. "Nobody is going anywhere yet," he said. "Matt's right, you two need to talk."

Jeff glared at him. "You know, I could call Mark and tell him where you are! You aren't even supposed to be somewhere without him!"

"Well good luck with that. Mark and Glenn are currently incapacitated and probably won't wake up for another several hours." James smirked as he drank another shot. "I absolutely hate being supervised like a child. I told Mark I would not do anything too terrible, and the man STILL won't trust me. Honestly, after all I've done for him…" He shook his head. "Men are assholes. But women are bitches, which is why I don't date many of those."

I just stared at him for a minute. I wasn't quite sure what the hell to make of this guy. "Could you please leave Jeff and I alone for a minute?" I asked. "We need to talk in private for a little bit."

He glared at me. "Hey, I was here first! Your brother is the one who came to me and started drinking my booze." He poured another shot and handed it to me. "And if you're going to sit here with us, you will drink too."

I looked at Jeff, who was trying to distract himself by drinking even more. "Can we please talk alone?" I asked him.

"Don't want to talk," he said stubbornly.

I sighed and just drank what James gave me. "Well I'm not going away until we sort this shit out," I informed him. "I'll stay here all night if I have to."

Now I had said that hoping Jeff would just give in if he believed I wasn't going to go away. But he did not give in at all. He just kept drinking and drinking, and to show my determination, like an idiot, I kept up with him shot for shot. In fact, by the time I realized that James had stopped drinking and was just feeding us booze, I was too drunk to care.

"I don't get why you don't like Evan," I slurred out after we had finished our third bottle of vodka. "He's sweet, he's nice, he's good to me--what's your problem Jeffey?"

Jeff just shook his head. "He's not right for you Matty," he insisted stubbornly. "I don't want him to be the one for you."

I frowned. Oh God, what was he saying? "You don't want Evan, do you?"

"No!" Jeff said in exasperation. "I don't want Evan. Evan's not good enough for you."

"Well who is then Jeff?" I asked. I felt like throttling my brother. "Every time I date someone, you get all pissy and upset! Do you not want me to be happy?"

"I don't think it's that," James said wisely. He helped us both to our feet and started carrying us out of the bar. And I mean that literally, because he had us both tossed over his broad shoulders. "I just think he wants you to find happiness with someone a little closer to home."

"Shut up!" Jeff shouted at him. He started beating his fists against James's back. "Nobody asked you."

As my drunken mind tried to comprehend what the hell James's words meant, the larger man threw us into the back seat of his car. He put me in first and then he put Jeff in. And as he started to close the door, he stopped to whisper something in Jeff's ear. Now I didn't hear what was said, but Jeff suddenly got this bug eyed look, and he was completely quiet during the drive back to the hotel.

Once we got to the hotel, James dragged us both up to Jeff's room. "I have my own room you know," I told him. I was starting to feel a little motion sick from being carried around everywhere.

"Oh I know that," James said. He took Jeff's key card out of his pants pocket and unlocked the door. "But Jeff has something he needs to tell you." He dumped us both on one of the beds, set the key card on the dresser and then left. "Have fun boys!"

I sighed and shook my head. "I don't know about you Jeff, but I think that guy has some problems." I looked over at Jeff and saw that he was crying. "What the hell dude? What's wrong?"

Jeff shook his head. "I can't do this," he cried pitifully.

"You can't do what?" I forced him to sit up and look at me. "Jeff talk to me! You're really freaking me out here."

He looked me in the eyes and just stared at me. And I stared right back at him. We both just sat there for a long time, breathing heavily, our drunk minds knowing that something was about to change. But with me, I had no idea just what was going to change until Jeff pressed his lips against mine.

"Jeff what the hell?" I yelled as I jumped off the bed. Now I was drunk, but I didn't know if I was that drunk. "What are you doing?"

He just looked at me, still crying, and it about broke my heart in two. "Please Matty," he begged. "I'm sorry, but I can't help it." He grabbed me by the hand and pulled me on top of him. "I'm sorry."

I didn't know what to think as he began kissing me again. At first I tried to resist; he was my brother, and I still had Evan. But as he wrapped his legs around me to prevent me from escaping, an unexpected urge took me over. I started kissing him back even harder than he was kissing me, and I let my hands roam his body. The booze made the fact that he was my brother completely irrelevant. And then there was the fact that he tasted so damn good. He tasted like home, which was something I couldn't even explain to myself.

"Matty," he panted as I removed our clothes. He looked so beautiful laying there, so scared but eager at the same time. "Don't leave me," he begged.

"I'm not going to leave you," I whispered. I grabbed his bag and searched through it until I found the bottle of lube I knew he had with him.

He smiled a little as I but some on my fingers. "At least you have something this time," he said smally.

I didn't know what he meant by that, but I was suddenly struck by the thought that I had done something like this with him before. But that thought was crazy, because I would remember fucking my brother, wouldn't I? Oh fuck it, I didn't care at the moment. I put two fingers inside of him to stretch him, although I loved the way he whimpered and moaned underneath me. "Matty…please just fuck me…please…"

"Shhh, I don't want to hurt you," I told him as I continued to stretch him. I had no idea how long it had been since Jeff had been with a guy, and I didn't want to take any chances.

Once I felt like I had stretched him enough, I put some of the lube on my dick and entered him quickly. I was so fucking hard that I didn't even ask him if he was sure he wanted to do this. Then again, the look in his eyes told me that he was completely willing to do this. "Oh fuck," I muttered as I began thrusting into him. He was so tight but he felt so damn good. He was different from Evan. Bigger, but not as big as I was. And he tasted sweeter. So much fucking sweeter.

"Matt," he moaned desperately. He was clinging to me like he believed I was going to disappear at any moment. "Oh God Matt!"

I silenced his moans with a kiss. It wasn't that I really wanted him to be quiet; I just wanted to taste his mouth again. Jeff's kisses were different than Evan's. They were more forceful, demanding and irresistible. I actually found them to be so much better. Somewhere, in the deep recesses of my mind, I knew I was going to deny that in the morning, but that wasn't what I was concentrating on at the moment. All I wanted to concentrate on was the here and now, with my little brother writhing and moaning underneath me, and the pleasure…oh God, the pleasure…

I could feel my climax approaching, and I knew that I wasn't going to hold out for much longer. I grabbed Jeff's dick and began stroking it in time with my thrusts. "Cum for me Jeff," I whispered. "Come on baby, cum for me."

He moaned so sweetly as he came, covering my stomach with his seed. I came just a half a second later, filling him to the brim. We both went still for a moment, both of us desperate to catch our breath. Finally I pulled out of him and laid down in the spot next to him. He immediately curled up next to me and hugged me tightly. "I love you Matty," he told me as I drifted off to sleep. "I love you so much…"


	4. Chapter 4

Jeff's POV

I woke up the next morning to find that Matt was not by my side anymore. I immediately became nervous. Had he just bailed on me completely? Was he so disgusted by what we had done that he didn't want to look at me anymore? But then I heard the toilet flush and I sighed in relief. He was still here. He hadn't left me yet.

My relief lasted until he came out of the bathroom and looked at me. I could see the mixture of emotions in his eyes. He looked so damn conflicted that it about broke my heart. Had I made the wrong choice when I acted on James's advice to just go for it? When he had whispered that to me as he was putting us in the car, it was the whole reason I had acted on my impulse. Being reminded that I probably would not get another shot had consumed my very being, and I had not let the opportunity pass me by. But now I wasn't sure if I had done the right thing. "Matt?" I said, my voice cracking under his stare. "Can you please say something?"

"What was last night Jeff?" he asked me quietly. He was approaching me slowly. "Why did you kiss me? Why did you insinuate that we fucked before? And why did you tell me you loved me?"

I gulped and began scooting away from him. I was frightened by the tone in his voice. He was dangerously close to losing his shit completely, which was not good news at all. "Matt please calm down," I pleaded. "I can explain, just--"

Matt grabbed me by the arms and literally lifted me off the bed so he could slam me up against the wall. "Don't tell me to calm down!" he yelled. He was officially freaking out right now, and it truly was a scary thing. "I cheated on Evan with you of all people! You're my brother Jeff! My BROTHER!"

"I know who I am, asshole!" I yelled back. I tried to unsuccessfully push him away from me. "I haven't fucking forgotten!" I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. "This shit started the night of Shane's twenty first birthday. You came home so drunk and I was just trying to help you get into bed." I shook my head. "But then you kissed me…Matt I don't know why, but I liked it. And then we had sex, but when you didn't remember the next day, I was too scared to say anything. I didn't want you to hate me because of the way I felt for you."

"Jesus Christ," Matt said under his breath. He let go of me and backed up a few steps. "Oh fucking hell. I cannot believe this shit is happening."

I winced and looked down at my feet. I didn't know whether he was freaking out more about cheating on Evan, or me being the one who he slept with. Either way, I didn't like the way he was acting right now. "What are you going to tell Evan?" I somehow managed to ask.

Matt looked at me like I had gone absolutely insane. "I'm not telling him about this," he informed me. "This was a one time mistake that is not going to happen ever again."

Now my feelings were really hurt. "Hey you started this whole thing!" I said angrily. "You were the one who fucking made me feel this way! And seeing as how this has happened twice now, it is not a one time mistake!"

Matt got right back in my face. "Fine," he agreed. "This was a two time mistake that will lead to me never drinking again. And seeing as how I started it, I'm finishing it."

"Why? Because of stupid fucking Evan? Do you think he loves you as much as I do?"

"Don't call Evan stupid."

"I'll call him whatever name I want to!" I was shaking at this point. This conversation was spiraling completely out of control. I knew I needed to stop and until we both calmed down, but I couldn't. I was like a man possessed by the rejection, and it had made me very mean. "What makes you think he hasn't cheated on you first? God, he's such a fucking slut--"

Matt slapped me across the face as hard as he possibly could. The violent act shocked me down to my core. Matt had never hit me like that before. We weren't in the ring and we weren't playing around. He had legitimately slapped the taste out of my mouth. I put my hand up to my cheek and just stared at him. I knew that I had gone too far with the completely untrue slut comment, but I wasn't going to apologize for it. I wouldn't fucking do it.

"I love Evan," Matt told me quietly. "I really do. And I don't know why I fucked you all those years ago and I don't know why I didn't stop you last night."

"Because you feel something for me," I snapped. "You wouldn't have done those things if you hadn't!"

He threw his hands up in the air. "I was drunk Jeff! I don't think right when I'm drunk."

"No, actually you think better when you're drunk. You're living in denial Matt."

"Me? What about you? What did you think was going to happen today Jeff? Did you think I was going to throw everything I've been through with Evan away just to be with you? Is that what you want?"

I glared at him. I hated him so much right now for doing this to me. "Well do you think he's going to stay with you once he finds out what you did?" I asked him. "Do you think he'll still love you when he finds out you fucked me?"

"He's not going to find out."

"Oh yes he will. I'll tell him myself."

"You wouldn't."

"Watch me." I started to reach for the phone, and that was when Matt grabbed me and threw me down on the bed. I tried to get back up but he climbed on top of me and held me down. "Get off of me!" I screamed. "I'm not joking Matt!"

"I'm not getting off of you until you fucking promise to keep your mouth shut," he growled. He was trying to sound scary, but he was coming off more as desperate. His control was slipping, and his little world of righteousness and denial was crumbling down around him.

I shook my head. My emotions were getting the better of me, and now I wanted to hurt Matt more than he had just hurt me. "I'll tell him what we did. I'll tell him that you love being with me more than you love being with him."

"Stop it Jeff."

"Why? It's the truth. Look me in the eye and tell me you like being with him more than you liked being with me."

Dear Matt tried to do just that. He really did. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't get those words out of his mouth. I sighed and got my hands free from his grip. Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed him by the side of the head and kissed him as hard as I could. He immediately started doing this dance of giving in and then trying to resist. He did it over and over again, but I wasn't going to let him stop me. I couldn't let him stop me.

"Damn it, stop that!" he yelled as I tried to go for his belt. He got off me and quickly backed away. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Why not do it?" I countered. "We both want to. Give me one good reason why we shouldn't."

"Because I don't want to feel even more disgusted with myself than I already do!"

Those last words hurt more than his actual slap to my face did. It was the actual realization of the very thing I had always feared hearing. I closed my eyes tightly to try to hide the fact that I was about to cry. "Get out," I ordered.

"Jeff--"

"GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. I opened my eyes so I could see the phone as I grabbed it and hurled it at Matt's stupid fucking head. He managed to duck out of the way as he escaped my room. Just as the door was almost completely shut behind him, James pushed his way past Matt and let himself into the room.

"I'm going to go out on a limb and say the morning after did not go well," he said as he shook his head. "Am I right?"

I glared at him. "Get out," I snarled. "This is your fucking fault!"

"Hey, I didn't know Matt was going to have such a stick up his ass about this. Don't start throwing the blame at me just because he can't deal."

Suddenly Matt came back in and he went straight after James. "You fucking son of a bitch! You are the fucking reason this shit happened again! What the fuck were you playing at last night?"

"I just---"

Apparently Matt did not care what James had really up to last night, because the next thing I knew, he was attempting to punch James in the face. But James easily blocked the blow, and proceeded to head butt Matt so hard that it knocked him unconscious.

"Matt!" I yelled. I got off the bed and went to check on him. "What the hell did you do that for?" I yelled at James.

James rolled his eyes and slapped Matt across the face a couple of times until he woke back up. "I don't like being hit at," he told me. "And he was being an asshole."

"How do you know that?"

"Because my room is right next door to yours. I basically heard everything, and you'll be lucky if the entire floor didn't hear you." He patted me on the back and shook his head. "Now I would try to fix this even more, but I told Mark I would untie him from the bed and he's just going to get more pissy if I make him wait."

"You tied Mark to the--"

"It was the only way I could go anywhere without any supervision. That man is worse than a dictator." He smirked and made the old Hitler salute thing before bursting out laughing as he started to walk away.

Matt groaned and sat up as James left the room. "Fucking bastard has a hard head," he grumbled.

I tried to assess his face wound. "Matty there's blood, let me--"

He moved away from me. "I can't," he said as he stood up. "Just don't come near me right now Jeff."

"But Matt--"

"I mean it Jeff. I fucking need to be left alone right now."

I watched him leave with a painful lump in my throat. I wanted to say something that would make him stay, but nothing came to mind. Slowly I got up and got back on the bed. I grabbed the nearest pillow, buried my face in it and let myself cry and scream all I wanted to. God this was such a mess. Now everything was worse than before. Matt was disgusted with himself and now I was all alone, just like always. God I hate my life.


	5. Chapter 5

James's POV

"Explain to me your thought process during all this," Mark said in a very angry voice. He was absolutely ready to kill me because I had drugged both him and Glenn and tied them up so I could roam around without the annoying supervision. "You know you make bad things happen to people. You do it gleefully and without remorse. And you know that you know that without me, you have impulse control issues."

I nodded. "That was why I drugged you and Glenn's drinks and then tied you to the bed and him to the chair. I told you two that I was not a child, but you did not listen. You brought it on yourself Marky."

If looks could kill, I would be beyond dead right now. "Oh this is my fault now?" he growled at me. "It's my fault that Matt's freaking out and Jeff's bawling next door right now? Is that my fault? Was that me who got them drunk and made them sleep together?"

"No, that was me," I said. "And I thought if they fucked each other, it would plant the seed in Matt's head that he belonged with Jeff and not Evan." And honestly, maybe that part of my plan worked. It was really too soon to tell yet. "I did not know Matt was going to freak out the way he did."

"Well what did you think he was going to do?" Mark asked me. "And why do you even care about Matt and Jeff? Did you just decide to ruin someone's life while you were here and they just happened to be the ones you picked?"

I glared at him. "I was just trying to help Mark. I wasn't trying to ruin anything this time." Okay, maybe I was trying to ruin Matt's relationship with Evan, but that was just a casualty in what needed to happen. Jeff and Matt were made for each other. Only a total idiot couldn't see that. Then again, I was surrounded by idiots, so that didn't help me out any.

Mark shook his head and turned to Glenn. "Do you have anything to add to this before I throttle him?"

Glenn nodded. "Yeah. James, why does your knife have dried blood on it?"

Ah fuck, I forgot to hide that properly. I just grinned innocently as Mark took my favorite weapon of choice and examined it closely. Honestly, it wasn't like I had used it on anyone important. Nobody was going to miss the hobo who had set up shop behind this hotel. "I think you know the answer to that one Glenn," I told him.

Mark's neck vein was bulging, which wasn't a good sign. "You fucking murderous crazy ass mother fucker," he growled. "Do you have any fucking self control at all?"

I rolled my eyes. Of course I had self control. I hadn't stabbed Matt earlier, even though I had wanted to. The blood lust had been kept completely under control then. "What do you expect out of me Mark?" I asked. "I kill people. It's what I do. You know that better than anyone." I took my knife from him and stuck it in my pocket. "I told you I would keep it under control; I never said I would stop completely."

Mark just threw up his hands. As much as he wanted to throttle me, he wasn't going to do it at the moment. Maybe it was because I had my knife back. Or maybe it was because he knew that if he pushed me too far, I would go on a bloody rampage just to piss him off even more. "You are so damn aggravating," he informed me. "I hope you know that."

I grinned. I took pride in the fact that I could get under Mark's skin like nobody else could. "Well obviously you secretly love it, because I wouldn't be standing right here if you didn't."

"Well obviously you empathize with Jeff right now, which I know is getting to you," Mark snapped. Now he had a smug look on his face. "That means you feel human emotions, which you hate to do."

"I am going to stab you in the neck if you don't shut up right now." That was my way of admitting he was right, but we were not to discuss it. I couldn't deny that I knew exactly what Jeff was going through right now. My incestuous relationship had been with my twin sister Annabelle, and it was the most screwed up thing in the world. Then again, besides the incest factor, there was my psychotic nature, my feelings for Mark, her disgust with the monster I ultimately was, her love child with Mark and then our own psychotic love child that spelled the doom of our relationship. Now I had come to accept the blame I deserved, but she was the one who couldn't ultimately get past my demons, because they affected her more than they did me. Damn bitch had too much of a conscience.

Mark seemed to sense what I was thinking about. "Fixing Matt and Jeff isn't going to redeem the shit you and Annabelle put each other through."

"No, but fixing them proves that I'm not the poison she said I was."

"She's dead. She's not here to prove wrong."

"No, but you're here to prove wrong, so that's something. Besides, I can always dye your hair blonde, put a stuff bra on you, tape a fake vagina to you and then I'll pretend your Annabelle."

"Uh no you won't, because I'll kill you. I'm not even being sarcastic about that. I really will kill you if you try that."

Okay, maybe I wouldn't go that far…while Mark was sober anyway. "I am fixing this Mark. I'll fucking lock those two in a room together and not let them out until they are a couple if I have to."

"Well you can do that, but you can't kill Evan," Mark informed me.

"Why not? It'll be fun."

"No, it would be bad because you're giving everyone the creepy serial killer vibe already. All suspicion would go to you."

"Damn it. Will you do it then?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I want to keep my job."

"Shit. Damn it Mark, you're no fun."

XXXXXXX

Matt's POV

Evan was waiting for me by the time I got back to my hotel room. He looked like he had been through quite an ordeal with Hunter and Shawn. "They took me sex toy shopping," he informed me as he gave me a hug and a kiss. "I saw things that I didn't even know existed. And Hunter made me buy things."

"I'm sorry," I said. To him, it sounded like I was sorry for the ordeal he went through with DX. But in reality, I was apologizing for betraying him. I knew that the right thing to do would be to tell him what happened and hope that he would forgive me. But as soon as I looked him in the eyes, I knew that I wouldn't be able to do it. I did love and care about him. What happened with Jeff…I actually didn't know. I had heard him start to cry as I had left his room the second time, and it had broken my heart into a million little pieces. Maybe I did care about him in that way…no, I couldn't care for him in that way. He was my brother. What we had done was wrong, and we couldn't do it again.

Evan touched my face gently. "Honey what happened to your face. There's blood…"

_"Matty there's blood, let me--_

I touched my face and tried to block Jeff's voice from my mind. "Oh I just got in a little head butting contest with Mark's friend James," I said. It was a complete and total lie, since he had actually head butted me. The only lie was the contest part.

Evan shuddered. "I don't like him. He gives me the creeps."

"I guess you're not the only one who feels that way. I overheard Michelle and Alicia complaining about him."

"What did he do to them?"

"Well apparently he told Michelle her hair looked like a Hannah Montana wig and when she got in his face about it, he told her to get away from him before he caught a disease."

"Wow. That's harsh."

"But funny as hell. The guy is definitely a character." He was also the asshole who was partly to blame for my night with Jeff, but I wasn't going to get into that right now.

"He's still creepy though." Evan sighed. "You ready to go home now?"

"Yeah," I lied. But the truth was, I was nowhere near ready to go home. Going home meant I would have a harder time avoiding Jeff. Going home would mean possibly dealing with Jeff, and that meant dealing with what we had done. I would have to think about the way his lips felt against mine, the way he moaned my name, the way it felt to be inside of him, the way he told me he loved me as I drifted off to sleep. Oh God I wasn't ready for that. I wasn't ready for that at all.


	6. Chapter 6

Jeff's POV

Going back home was hell. It was the last place I wanted to be, but I didn't know where else to go. So I went home to my empty house and I just sat there, not knowing what to do with myself. Part of me wanted to reach out to Matt and try to talk to him. The other part of me was too scared to do that though. I had a feeling that he was trying to avoid me and I was afraid to have those feelings confirmed. Dad, Shannon and even Evan called me, but I refused to pick up the phone. Matt was the only one I wanted to talk to but he wasn't calling me.

I tried to do everything in my power to distract myself from my misery, but my mind kept going back to my recent night. I could still feel his touch on my skin and I could feel his lips against mine…it was driving me absolutely insane. I wanted to drink it all away, but I had no booze. And I was afraid to leave the house to go get some, because I knew I would end up on Matt's door if I left my place. I just could not win in this situation, no matter what I did.

As I paced back and forth like a caged animal, my phone rang yet again. I froze in my tracks, hoping it was Matt. But it wasn't, although I was kind of surprised by who it was. "Jeff I know you're there," Mark's voice informed me. "Would you please answer the damn phone? We need to talk."

I sighed and picked up the phone. "How would you even know that I was home?"

"I know you," he replied. He sounded tired and worn out. "How are you holding up kid?"

I wanted to insist that I was fine, but I couldn't muster up the will to lie. "I don't know what to do with myself Mark," I whined pathetically. "I keep thinking about what we did over and over again and it's driving me crazy."

"Have you talked to him about it?"

"I haven't spoken to him since our fight." I began chewing on my fingernails. "I think he hates me now."

Mark sighed. "He does not hate you. He was probably just freaked out. You know how stupid Matt can get when he's freaked out."

"He said he was disgusted with himself for fucking me," I confessed in a shaky voice. Just repeating the words made me want to cry, but I couldn't stop myself from saying them.

Before Mark could say something in response to that, somebody picked up on one of his other lines. "Mark! Where's the remote?" James whined.

"It's wherever Glenn put it," Mark snapped. He sounded like he was dangerously close to losing his cool completely. "Now please hang up and let me talk in peace."

"Who are you talking to?" James immediately asked. "I want to know who you're ignoring me for."

"He's talking to me," I said angrily. "This is your fault I'm miserable right now. You made everything worse than it was before."

"No, Matt freaking out made it worse than it was before. I only gave you the alcohol. It was your ultimate decision to make your feelings known," James replied. He just sounded amused by my anger. "Now you can piss and moan and pity yourself or you can fight for the man you love. It's really all up to you."

Both Mark and I just went silent after he said that. His words did have a certain kind of sense. I wanted Matt badly enough to fight for him. Hell, I loved him more than anything in the world. I would die for him. But even if I tried to fight for him, it didn't mean I was going to win him. Even if he did want me the way I wanted him, it would take a miracle for him to get past the fact that we were brothers. In his mind, he had sinned the two nights we had given into temptation. I didn't know if he would get past the stigma we would ultimately be burdened with if the world found out about us.

James finally chuckled. "Wow, I left the both of you speechless with just my words. It usually takes a gag to shut Mark up." I could hear him rummage through something. "Oh there's the remote. Now I can change the shit Glenn is making me watch. I'm going to kill him for putting on the Disney channel."

I frowned as James got off the phone. "He is a very strange man," I informed the Deadman.

Mark snorted. "You have no idea how true that statement is."

"Where did you meet him anyway?"

"Vegas. We were kids when we met. He was actually worse when we were younger."

"Why was he worse?"

"He didn't have any anti-psychotic pills to take."

"Why does he take anti-psychotic pills?"

"Because he's psycho," Mark said nonchalantly. "He actually goes on and off them, which probably isn't a good thing. And even when he takes them, he takes only one instead of the two he's supposed to take. He just wants enough sanity to cover his tracks in case he does something bad."

"What kind of bad things does he do?" I knew this wasn't really any of my business, but damn it, I needed a distraction from the shit I was going through. Besides, if a psycho was going to be staying with Mark, then I wanted to find out what the hell kind of psycho we would all be dealing with."

"Jeff, I don't want to get into details," Mark said. "Just be careful around him. I think he's taken a liking to you, but if you piss him off, there's no telling what he'll do."

I frowned. "Jesus Mark, you're acting like he's a crazy killer or something." I said that kind of as a joke, but the long silence from the Deadman's end told me I had pretty much figured out the truth. "Oh my God!"

"Jeff, now let's not--"

"He kills people? Your boyfriend is a killer?"

"Now boyfriend is a strong term--"

"He said he was going to kill Glenn! Mark, you have to do something!"

"Jeff! Calm down for two seconds and listen to me!"

I stopped yelling and took a deep breath. "Okay, I'm listening."

Mark sighed. "James is my problem, alright? I will deal with him and keep him under control as best I can. I'm not going to let him hurt too many people while he's here. Hell, he's only staying until Cooper and Connor come back from Europe."

"And they are…?"

"His kids…well technically Cooper's my kid, but that's just a long and complicated story that I don't want to get into." There was the sound of a crash from this end and he started curing like a sailor. "I've got to go. Glenn and James are fighting over the remote and someone is going to get hurt if I don't stop them."

I sighed as I was unceremoniously hung up on. I put down my own phone and stared down at my feet for awhile. I felt so damn lost and confused about all of this. James's advice was seeping into my brain and while it was something I wanted to do, I didn't know if I could handle it if it didn't work out. But in the end, I couldn't just sit and be miserable the entire time. I had to do something about all of this. I picked up the phone and made the call.

Luckily, Matt answered the phone instead of Evan. "Hello?"

"We need to talk," I said immediately. I couldn't draw all this out too much or I was going to lose my courage."

Matt went silent for a minute. "This isn't a good time Jeff," he finally told me.

I shook my head, even though he couldn't even see that action. "I don't care," I informed him. "I can't stand this. I feel like you hate me now."

"I don't hate you Jeff. I just can't be around you right now."

"Why?" God, I hated whining like this, but I was too upset to care. "Matt I need you."

"Jeff please, I can't do this right now," he said desperately. "I just need more time to deal with this on my own."

"But you're not going to deal with it!" I yelled at him. "You're just going to bury it and pretend it never happened!"

"Jeff don't--"

"Just talk to me damn it!"

The only response I got to that was him hanging up the phone. I was so shocked that he actually hung up on me that I just sat there like an idiot for a minute before I let out a primal yell and yanked the phone off the hook. I tossed the bastard thing against the wall and grabbed my keys. I was so angry that I couldn't even get my door open for a whole minute. I actually had to stop, take a deep breath, and realize that I had been twisting the knob the wrong way.

When I finally did get out of my own house, I got in my car and sped off. Matt wasn't going to keep ignoring me. I was going to make him listen to me whether he wanted to or not. Now if I only knew what I was going to say when I got to him…


	7. Chapter 7

Matt's POV

I knew I had made a mistake hanging up on Jeff. He was probably not taking it well at all. But honestly, I didn't know what else to do. My own home felt like a prison because all I could see was him. The night we spent together (the most recent one because that was the one I remembered) kept replaying itself over and over again in my head. And every time I thought about it, I got so damn hard that I could barely stand it.

My only saving grace was that Evan wasn't home. My cousins Tina and Dorothy were helping him shop for silverware for the reception. I had done that with him in the beginning, but I hated it so badly that he took pity on me and decided he would do all the boring stuff like that. I sighed. Evan was a complete sweetheart. He didn't deserve an idiot like me who fucked his own brother.

I heard a car pull up in the driveway. Even though I knew it had to be Jeff, I peeked out the window anyway. My suspicions were confirmed by Jeff storming out of his car and coming to my doorstep. Now if I had any brains at all, I would have just hid and not let him in. But I effectively proved my own stupidity by going to the front door and opening it. "You can't be here," I said uselessly as he let himself in. "I can't see you right now."

"Shut up," he snapped. "I'm not leaving until we settle this."

"There's nothing to settle," I insisted stubbornly. "We made a mistake Jeff. It's a mistake we can never make again."

"A mistake? A mistake? No Matt, what we did was not a mistake!" Jeff was trying to keep his cool but he was failing miserably. "I was there and it did not feel like a mistake! Fuck, nothing ever felt so right in my life!"

"Then you have a pretty sick and twisted sense of right and wrong," I said cruelly. I didn't want to hurt him, but I needed to end all of this before things got even more confusing and complicated.

He glared at me defiantly. "I know you're just saying that to hurt me. And it's not going to work. I love you and I'm not letting Evan take you from me."

"Me marrying Evan is not your decision!" I yelled angrily. "I want to marry Evan and you're not going to stop me!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Well ask yourself this Matt: do you want to marry Evan because you love him, or do you want to marry him because he's everything you're supposed to love?"

Ugh! He was pissing me off so badly! And the sad part was, now that everything that was happening, I couldn't answer that question. "Why are you doing this to me Jeff?" I asked quietly. "What happened between us was wrong Jeff. Why can't you accept that?"

"Why can't you just accept that right and wrong are completely subjective concepts?" Jeff countered. "Some people think being gay is wrong, but we don't let that stop us. Love is love Matt. I don't care what everyone else thinks about it."

I shook my head. "I can't do this Jeff. I'm your brother and I can't let this go on. I'm sorry."

He looked down at his feet. "You're supposed to protect me," he whimpered.

"What?" I was cut off guard by that change of tactics.

"You're the one who protects me…the one who makes sure I doesn't get hurt." He looked up and I could see tears behind his eyes. "But you've been hurting me every day for thirteen years. Just looking at you hurts."

"Jeff…"

He grabbed my hand and placed it on his heart. "It hurts here Matty, and I just want it to stop."

I swallowed heavily. I didn't know what to do right now. This was a completely new experience for me. "Jeff--"

"Matty please--"

I lost control of myself and began kissing him. I knew it wasn't the right thing to do, but I didn't care. Or hell, maybe it was the right thing to do but I didn't want it to be. I didn't have the answers. I wasn't even sure I knew the questions. All I knew was that Jeff was kissing me back feverishly and his lips tasted so damn good. They were better than I remembered and I wanted more. I needed so much more.

"Matt," Jeff whimpered as I lifted him up and carried him up to my bedroom. "Don't do this if you don't mean it."

I didn't give him an answer to that. I just kept kissing him, knowing I was probably only going to be making things worse. Someone was going to get hurt and they were going to get hurt badly. Maybe all of us were going to get hurt in the end. But at the moment, I couldn't bring myself to care. I needed Jeff too much to care about anything but having a repeat performance from the other night.

I put him down by my bed and we undressed ourselves. He was shaking and I could barely breathe. I knew that my world of denial was crumbling before me and it was my own damn fault. I couldn't blame the booze this time. I had to come to terms with the fact that I harbored some sort of attraction for my own brother. But that would come later. Right now, I was just focused on acting out that attraction. I wanted him so badly that I could barely stand it.

"Matt," he whimpered as I pulled him into my embrace. I kissed his neck and collarbone as we fell on to the bed. "Don't marry Evan. Please--"

I silenced him with another kiss. I didn't want to hear Evan's name right now. I would have to figure out what I wanted to do about him later. Right now, I just needed to do be with Jeff.

Jeff pulled away from the kiss and just stared at me. "Matty?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell me you love me."

I just stared at him. I knew he wasn't talking about love in the brotherly sense. "I can't," I said quietly.

"Why?"

"Because I don't know how I feel right now."

He looked at me sadly. "You can just say it so I can hear it. You don't have to mean it."

I shook my head. "I can't do that. You're going to throw it back in my face later when you get the chance."

"I won't, I--"

I entered him swiftly and without warning, knowing his promise was a false one. He cried out and clawed at my back, but I kept going, too horny to stop now. He was so damn tight that I could barely stand it, and every ounce of me felt like it was on fire. This was so damn wrong and twisted…at least that's what I tried to tell myself. In reality, I was starting to see the truth in Jeff's words. Nothing had ever felt so right in my entire life. Being here with Jeff made me feel complete in a way I never had before, and that scared the shit out of me. My own brother wasn't supposed to make me feel this way. If people found out, we were both going to be screwed. Our lives would be ruined, and then what would we do?

"Matt…harder…oh God…fuck," Jeff moaned sweetly. He was kissing every part of me that he could reach. He was probably intentionally trying to leave a mark that Evan would question, and I pulled his hair for it.

"Would you be careful?" I managed to groan out between pants and moans. "You're going to get us both in trouble."

"Evan can't do shit to us," Jeff managed to snap. He pulled me closer to him and clung on to me tightly. "He's…oh shit…Matty…"

I felt him cum on my chest and the way his walls tightened around my dick was too much for me to take. I came hard, filling him to the brim and even getting some on the bed as I pulled out. I didn't get off of him immediately. I just stayed somewhat on him and looked at him. He was looking at me with a confused look on his face.

"What are you going to do now Matt?" he asked quietly. He didn't sound angry; he just wanted to know what I was going to say. "Who are you going to choose? Me or Evan?"

I took several deep breaths and just stared at him. I knew he what he wanted to hear, but I couldn't give it to him. Not now, maybe not ever. At least not until I sorted my own shit out. "I don't know," I confessed. "I really don't know."

I saw the hurt look in his eyes. That hadn't been what he wanted to hear. He pushed me off of him, got his clothes on and then left. I laid back on the bed and just cried for awhile. Damn it, why did my life have to be so complicated? Now what was I going to do?


	8. Chapter 8

James's POV

When Mark, Glenn and I got to the arena for the next Smackdown, the first thing I saw was Matt and Evan together. They were off in their own little world, just making out and giving everyone around them an opportunity to point, laugh or gag (which a lot of them were doing because wrestlers can be immature like that). But as I studied the happy couple carefully, I noticed that Matt wasn't quite as happy as he was trying to make himself seen. The boy was fucking just pouring angst. "He did it with Jeff again," I whispered to Mark.

Mark frowned. "How can you tell?"

"He's acting the same way Annabelle did whenever she made out with you or someone else to act like she would never fuck her own brother," I replied. Now I didn't get creeped out by much, but the similarities between the situation between Matt and Jeff were really starting to make me think about what Annabelle and I had gone through, and that was not something I wanted to do. "I'm going to go find Jeff," I muttered.

"No, _we're_ going to find Jeff," Mark corrected me as we left Glenn behind. "I want to talk to the kid about this mess too."

"You care about him don't you?"

"A little bit. You got a problem with that?"

"No, not really. I'm just a little surprised."

He snorted. "You're surprised? What about me? I'm standing next to a certified mass murderer and he wants to help two brothers with their relationship problems."

"Hey, you're just like me. You're just semi-retired at the moment." I pointed towards the men's restroom. "I think he's in there."

"What the hell makes you say that?" Mark asked.

"Because it's totally cliché to go cry in a bathroom." I tried to open the door but it was locked. Giving Mark a smug look, I raised my foot up and kicked the door open, nearly scaring Jeff half to death. "I couldn't resist," I confessed.

Jeff quickly looked away from me, but I could already tell he was crying. "Go away," he said miserably. "I want to be alone."

"Well I don't feel like leaving you alone." I walked over to the sink next to him and I leaned against it. "You know that little show Matt and Evan are putting on is just an act on Matt's part, right? His heart's not in it."

"How would you know?" Jeff asked childishly. "You don't know what my brother's like."

"Matt's not a fucking complicated puzzle," I snapped. "I can read people very well, and the boy has not made a choice yet. His brain is telling him one thing and his heart is telling him another."

Mark just shook his head. "Fucking psycho ass killer knows people better than anyone else. The world is fucking doomed."

I glared at him. "You know, your smart ass comments are not helping any."

"Well it's not fair!" Jeff whined. He smashed his fist against the mirror, nearly breaking it in the process. "Fuck Evan! Matt wants me and he's too much of a fucking coward to admit it!" He gripped the sink tightly and shook his head. "I need to do something to make him see that."

I looked at Mark and I was suddenly struck by an idea. "Make him jealous," I blurted out. "Go off with another guy. Give him a taste of his own medicine."

Mark groaned and put his hands over his eyes. "James--"

"That's perfect," Jeff declared. He wiped his eyes and nodded. "I'll go off with someone else tonight. That fucking will wake Matty up."

Mark shook his head as Jeff left the bathroom. "This is either going to turn out really well, or really bad," he told me. "I hope you're ready to accept the blame if this all goes wrong."

I just grinned. "Why would I accept the blame for anything? I only made a suggestion. Jeff didn't need to listen to me."

"So you're taking no responsibility for this?"

"Of course not! Would you?"

"No but--"

I cut him off with a kiss. I almost started laughing as he rolled his eyes. He hated it when I settled arguments like that because it always took away his will to fight back. Which honestly, that was what I wanted. Mark was always looking for control, and I played along somewhat. But in the end, I always had to remind who was wearing the pants in this relationship. Well, figuratively anyway. We both were literally wearing pants. Hmmm….maybe I could ask Mark to wear a--no, that's just wrong. I got a mental picture of Mark in a dress and that actually scared me. And when scary people get scared of stuff, that stuff was to be avoided at all costs.

XXXXXXX

Evan's POV

"Do you want to stay in tonight baby or do you want to go out?" I asked. The show was over and Matt and I were gathering up our stuff.

Matt just shrugged. "We can stay in. That will probably be better anyway."

I tried to hide my frown as I kept getting my stuff all together. Something weird was going on with him. I had first noticed it after I spent the night shopping with Hunter and Shawn, and it had gotten worse ever since our past few days off. I had searched my brain over and over again to figure out if it was something I did or said, but I couldn't think of anything. Hell, I had even flat out asked Matt if I had done something, but he had flat out denied that it was anything involving me.

But even hearing that didn't make me feel better. Something was still wrong with Matt. He was acting way too weird. In fact, I was starting to notice two things that he didn't seem to think I was noticing: he was acting guilty as hell, like he had actually done something wrong, and he looked like a deer caught in the headlights whenever Jeff was mentioned. God, if I seriously didn't know better, I would think he was cheating on me with Jeff or something.

When we got our stuff gathered up, we began to leave the arena. On the way out, we saw Jeff leaving with Chris Jericho of all people. Matt's eyes immediately darkened and there was something about his stare that was more than his usual protective big brother glare. I could see a lot of rage and…jealously? No, that couldn't be right.

But then I looked at Jeff. He was pretending to be all over Chris, but he was really looking at Matt. And the looks were not ones that any man should be shooting his brother. A bad feeling began to form in the pit of my stomach. Something was going on, and I knew I wasn't going to like it when I found out what it was.

"Actually, can we go out tonight?" Matt suddenly asked. Chris and Jeff were going off and it was obvious he wanted to follow them. "Jeff looks like he wants to do something stupid and I can't let that happen."

I tried to tell myself the tone in his voice was all brotherly concern, but deep in my heart, I wasn't buying the lie. "Okay," I said. "Let's go." Now I didn't say yes because I wanted to go out or even wanted to find out what the hell was going on. No, I agreed to what he wanted because I _needed_ to find out what was going on. I knew Matt would never tell me if something was going on, so the only way I was ever going to know was to catch him at whatever he was really doing. _I'm going to regret this as soon as I find out. I'm being so damn stupid right now! What the fuck am I doing? What the fuck is wrong with me?_

XXXXXXX

Jeff's POV

I grinned as I got in the car with Chris. I had seen the look on Matt's face and my plan was working. He was so jealous right now. I knew he was going to go wherever I was just to make sure I didn't do anything with Jericho. And I was glad that my plan was working so well, because I honestly didn't want to do anything with Chris. He was a prick and an asshole. Hell, the only reason I picked him was because he was the first person I saw after I had left the bathroom. That, and I knew that he would really be easy to seduce. All it took was a twirl of the hair, a sexy little pout and a little shake of the hips and he was mine for the night. Damn it, I wish Matt was that easy. It would make me feel so much better.

"Earth to Jeff," Chris said as he drove away from the arena. "Don't be spacing off of me. It makes me think you're thinking of someone else."

_Because I am you moron_. "I was trying to remember if I left my Skittles at my hotel room or in the locker room," I lied.

He smirked. "Oh don't worry about honey. You won't be thinking of those things for long. Not while I'm around."

It was hard to resist the urge to roll my eyes. _You better come for me Matty. I need an excuse to get away from this idiot and you're the one I want to use._


	9. Chapter 9

Matt's POV

Evan and I followed Chris and Jeff to some local nightclub that all the other wrestlers were at. I was so angry that I didn't even bother to find out the name of the place. I wanted to know what the hell Jeff was doing with Chris of all people. Jericho was egotistical, arrogant asshole--not quite different from his on screen persona actually. He was also notorious for sleeping around, and I didn't want Jeff to become another conquest for him.

_Sure, go ahead and tell yourself that Matty,_ James's voice said to me. _Deny that you're actually jealous because you want Jeff to be only yours. Deny it right to Evan's face because you're a fucking liar. You and I know the real truth here._

Damn it, why was I hearing this guy's voice in my head? Was I trying to sabotage myself or something? I sighed and tried to concentrate on finding Jeff. It was hard to see anyone because the place was absolutely packed. I did manage to find James and Mark sitting alone at the table. Despite my reservations about the enigma that was James, I decided to drag Evan over to them anyway. I had to see if someone had seen Jeff.

James slammed his shot glass down on the table. "How much of its genetics? How much of it is fate? How much of it depends on the choices that we make?"

Mark slugged him on the arm. "What did I tell you about singing?"

"What the hell is he singing?" Evan asked.

"Some fucking bullshit from some movie we watched last night," Mark said. He downed his drink in one gulp. "I hate it when he makes me watch musicals."

James grinned. "It was _Repo! The Genetic Opera_," he clarified for me and Evan's sake. "And the best part about musicals is singing the songs the next day and driving Mark up the wall."

"I'm going to take this bottle of whiskey and drive it through your neck. How does that sound? Does that sound like fun?"

"Only if you pull my hair first."

I decided not to try to even begin making sense of the obviously twisted nature of James and Mark's relationship. "Have either of you see Jeff? I need to talk to him."

James pointed to the crowded dance floor. "He and Chris went that way." He turned to Evan and grinned. "Can I ask your professional opinion on something?"

Mark groaned. "Oh Lord, not this question again."

James ignored him and went ahead and asked Evan, even though he hadn't said he could be asked. "If a man is a serial killer, and his sons become killers too, is it the heredity, the environment or their choices that made them the way they are?"

Evan looked confused. "Wait, what does that have to do with anything?"

I took advantage of James's distraction and went out on to the dance floor. I pushed past all the people, wondering if I was too late. I hoped not; I didn't want to go try to figure out which hotel Chris and Jeff would go to. Luckily, I spotted them on the dance floor. "Jeff!" I yelled. "Jeff!"

Jeff looked at me as I approached. My younger brother had obviously been expecting me. "Hey Matty," he said with a seductive grin. "What are you doing here?"

I glared at him. "You know why I'm here," I said to him.

Chris looked annoyed that I was interrupting his chance to score with my brother. "Hey whatever drama you two have going on, save it for another time, alright?"

Now it was his turn to receive my glare. "How about you just go away and let me talk to my brother?"

Jeff tried to pull away from Chris. "Matt come on, let's talk for a minute."

Chris grabbed Jeff by the arm and pulled him back way too roughly for my taste. "The only Hardy that is going anywhere is Matt," he growled.

"Get your damn hands off of him!" I yelled. We were starting to attract all kinds of attention but I didn't care. I was too focused on killing Jericho if he even dared to yank my brother around like that again.

"Damn it Chris, you're hurting me!" Jeff said. This was obviously not quite the direction he wanted this to go.

Chris ignored Jeff and stared at me. "Why are you getting so bent out of shape about this Matthew?" he asked with that damn smirk of his. "Don't you think it's time that your precious little baby brother gets fucked by a real man?"

I completely lost control of myself when he said that. I yanked Jeff out of his grasp and decked him in the face as hard as I could. Several of the girls who had been dancing around us screamed and jumped back. A bunch of drunk idiots were yelling at me to keep punching Chris. I was about to happily oblige when Jeff grabbed me by the shirt and dragged me out of the club through the back door. I waited until we were outside and in an empty alley before I shoved him up against the wall roughly. "What the fuck did you think you were doing?" I shouted. "Did you think you were being cute or something?"

Jeff tried to shove me away. "Get off of me Matt!"

I wasn't about to budge, despite his best efforts to make me. "No," I growled. "I want to know what the fuck you were trying to do with Chris."

"I was trying to make you jealous!" he finally admitted. "I wanted you to feel as jealous as I feel whenever I watch you and Evan together."

I sighed and let him go. Anger was still coursing through my veins, but I was trying to keep it in check. "What I do with Evan is different," I said as calmly as I could. "I have to be affectionate with him or he'll suspect something is wrong."

Jeff snorted. "In case you haven't noticed, you've cheated on him twice with me. He's not stupid Matt. Even if you don't tell him, he's going to figure out you did something. You'd be better off just breaking it off with him and--"

"And what?" I interrupted. "Run away with you? Live happily ever after?" I shook my head. "Maybe in a perfect world, that would be possible. But the world fucking sucks Jeff. A lot of people know we're brothers Jeff. And if people find out about what's been going on between us, they're not all going to be very accepting of it. Some people might even try to do something about it."

He shook his head. "You worry way too much Matt."

"No, you don't worry enough!" I informed him angrily. I had to be the one who worried about these kinds of things because he never would. I was the one who had to think about the consequences of our actions.

"Maybe I don't," he admitted. "But who the fuck cares what the rest of the world thinks? Ninety percent of the populations is made up of assholes." He started to come towards me. "Why does what everyone else thinks have to matter? Why can't we just be happy?"

I felt my resolve breaking. This was becoming a trend with him. I grabbed him by the hand and dragged him to my car. "Where are you staying at?" I asked him.

"The Marriott down the street," he said breathlessly. "Same one you are."

We got in the vehicle and I sped off like a madman. It was hard to resist pulling over and fucking him right here in the car. "What room?" I managed to ask.

"114."

I sighed and gripped the steering wheel tightly. "Okay," I said. "We're going there then."

He grinned triumphantly and I found myself completely forgetting that I left Evan back at the club within the clutches of Mark and James. In retrospect, I should have known that was not a good idea. It was not a good idea at all."

XXXXXX

Mark's POV

"Where the fuck did he go?" I yelled. It had been an hour since Matt had abandoned Evan at our table and now the little bastard had disappeared too. "James…"

"He probably went searching for Matt," James said. He didn't sound particularly worried about the consequences of that. Then again, he was kind of drunk, and he didn't really worry about anything when he was like that.

"Shit!" I cursed. I grabbed James and dragged him out of the club. I already knew that Evan was long gone by now. "Is Jeff staying at the same hotel as Matt and Evan?"

"I think so." James nearly tripped over his own feet. "You know, this would all be much simpler if you just let me take the little bastard out for good. Nobody has to know except you and me."

I glared at him. "Evan doesn't deserve to die just because he's a complication in Matt and Jeff's weird little love story. He didn't do anything wrong."

He snorted. "You act like I care if someone is innocent or not. Jeez Mark, I thought you knew me better than that."

The problem was, I did know him better than that and I did know that he didn't give a shit about innocence or guilt. "Just come on," I said irritably. "We need to find him before something bad happens."

We got on my motorcycle and I got us to the hotel as fast as we could. I had found out what room Jeff was staying in earlier, so that was where we checked first. And of course, when we got there, who was sitting outside the door with a shocked look on his face? Evan fucking Bourne.

"You think he opened the door and saw them?" James whispered.

I shook my head. "Listen carefully Lawson. What do you hear right now?"

James listened and the unmistakable groans of Matt and Jeff told him exactly what Evan had heard. "Dude, whatever happened to discretion?"

I ignored his question and looked at Evan. I couldn't tell if he was going to cry or kill someone. Hell, maybe he was going to do both. "Evan?"

"I saw the way Jeff was looking at him in the arena earlier," Evan said quietly. He slowly got up to his feet. "I knew something was up right then and there. But this…" He looked at the door. "What the fuck is Matt doing?"

"Jeff," James said innocently. "Incest is the popular term, although I don't like it because it sounds dirty."

"WELL HOW THE FUCK IS THIS CLEAN?" Evan yelled at the same time Jeff let out a really loud moan. It was a miracle the Hardys were not hearing this. "MY FIANCE IS CHEATING ON ME WITH HIS YOUNGER BROTHER! WHAT THE FUCK IS RIGHT ABOUT THAT?"

I tried to put my hand over his mouth. "Evan…"

"You two knew, didn't you?" he said. He was glaring daggers at me and James. "Didn't you?"

"Yeah," James said bluntly. "And no offense, I've been rooting for Jeff."

I smacked him on the back of the head. "Now is not the time to be opening your mouth," I hissed.

Evan shook his head. "No, you know what? I appreciate the honesty." He took off his engagement ring and hurled it at us. "It's more than I got out of Matt obviously."

I watched as he stormed off. I knew that there was going to be an ugly confrontation as soon as he saw Matt and Jeff tomorrow. "Wow, this is way too fucking messy for my taste," I muttered.

"Yeah," James said with a nod. "I want to kill someone."

"Well too bad, because its actually time for me to get you back for tying me up to that bed the first night you were here." I threw him over his shoulders and started carrying him back to my room. He was too drunk to fight me off effectively. "And believe me Lawson, payback will definitely be a bitch for you tonight!"


	10. Chapter 10

Jeff's POV

I was overjoyed to wake up the next morning and still be in Matt's arms. Sure my ass was sore as hell and my leg was asleep because he was laying on it, but those were prices I was willing to pay. Matt was here with me and not Evan; he had spent the night making love to me and not Evan fucking Bourne. I knew I wasn't being nice or fair in my thoughts or treatment of Evan, but I didn't care. I had loved Matt way before anyone else, and I deserved to get him.

Matt groaned and opened his eyes slowly. At least this time he didn't automatically freak out. "Hey," he said quietly.

"Hey," I said. I snuggled up closer to him and rested my head on his chest. I could hear his heart beating and it made me smile.

"I need to get up Jeffro."

I looked back at him with a hurt look on my face. "Why?" I asked, even though I could already guess the reason.

"I need to talk to Evan."

"About what, your wedding plans?" I didn't even try to hide the bitterness in my voice.

"I'm calling off the wedding."

Well spank my ass and call me a bitch. I did not see that one coming. "You're doing what?" I said as I sat up and turned around to face him.

He sighed. "I can't do this to him. He doesn't deserve me. He deserves someone a lot better than me."

"There's nobody better than you Matty."

"I think you have a way too biased opinion."

Well that part was true. I smiled as I climbed on top of my Matt and I kissed him gently. "What are you going to say to him?"

Matt just gulped. "I have no idea. I'm not going to tell him about us--not right away anyway. This is going to be hard enough to do without having to explain whatever the hell it is we've got going on."

Hell, I didn't care if he ever told Evan about us. I was just happy that he was choosing me. It seemed like James's advice was finally paying off. "You have no idea how happy I am right now," I informed him.

He smirked and ran his hand over my crotch. "Actually, I think I do have a pretty good idea of just how happy you are."

I smirked back at him. "Do you think you can help me Matty?"

"I think I can do some--"

"Wah! Ninja kick!" Our door was kicked open violently and in came James, wearing only a pair of boxers and a dog collar. From the looks of it, it seemed as if he had been whipped repeatedly last night.

"Don't you ever knock?" I yelled. I pulled the blankets over myself and Matt so James wouldn't get a free show.

"Knocking is for wusses," James replied. He held up something that he was holding in his hand. "Now as much as I would love the two of you to continue your little love fest, last night's edition of your sexcapdes has brought on some consequences Mark and I were unable to prevent."

Mark came in at that moment. He was wearing only a pair of jeans that he had obviously thrown on in a hurry. "Evan got away from us last night," he said to Matt. "And he heard what you two were doing. He knows you cheated with Jeff."

I groaned and rolled off of Matt. This was not what I wanted to deal with right now. "Shit," I cursed. I reached down by the side of the bed and grabbed my underwear. "Is he the only one that knows?"

"Well he was until Glenn said he went crying to Jay," Mark said. "And then Jay, who's pissed at you two now, told Adam, who then yelled "Matt fucked his brother?" loud enough for everyone within a ten mile radius to hear it."

"So to make a long story short, everyone knows about you two now," James finished for Mark. He jumped on to the bed with us and handed Matt Evan's ring. "Glenn's at the arena right now and he said people are already taking sides. He said everybody feels sorry for Bourne, and nobody seems to understand why you cheated. Especially with Jeff since he's your brother and all that fun stuff."

Matt groaned. "Fuck, this is not how I wanted this to go down."

I sighed and finished getting dressed. I didn't want things to go down like this either, although my reasons were a little different than Matt's. I was afraid that this was going to scare Matt away from our relationship, and I did not want that to happen at all. I couldn't bear to lose him because everyone was sympathetic to his now ex-fiancé.

Once Matt was dressed, we drove down to the arena with James and Mark (they also stopped to finish getting dressed). I was so nervous about what was going to happen that I chewed my fingernails all up. Matt finally had to grab my hands and make me knock it off. "It's going to be okay," he whispered to me. "We're going to be okay. I'm going to straighten things out with Evan as best as I can. You just need to stay with Mark and James while I do that, okay?"

"You think someone is going to try to do something to me." I said that as a statement, not a question.

He sighed. "I don't know what to expect right now. I just want you to be safe and even if someone is thinking about doing something, they won't do it while Mark and James are around."

"Well what about you?" I asked. "Who's going to protect you?"

"We'll make Glenn do it," James said. He was looking at himself in the mirror and trying to spike his hair up with a bunch of gel. "He won't mind looking after you Mr. Matthew."

"Oh he will mind," Mark said. "But that doesn't matter. We make him do things he doesn't want to do all the time. This will just be one more thing on that list."

When we did arrive at the arena, I could feel everyone staring at us. Some of the looks we were getting were downright hostile (for Evan's sake no doubt) and others were just confused. They didn't seem to get what the hell was going on between myself and Matt. And honestly, I didn't feel like telling them.

Glenn came over to us as soon as we saw us. "Evan's with Jay and Maria," he announced. "He's not taking this very well."

"Yeah, well, I think we could have all seen that coming," Mark muttered. He pointed to Matt. "Take him to find the poor bastard and let's see if we can get this straighten out somewhat. James and I are going to keep an eye on Jeff."

Matt gave me one last look before following Glenn. I sighed and continued to follow James and Mark to Mark's locker room. On the way, we happened to pass Chris, who immediately made a beeline for me. "Well well well," he said loudly. "Look who it is. It's the brother fucker."

James stepped in front of me while Mark glared at Jericho. "Don't you be starting none of your shit boy," the Deadman growled. "I am not in the mood to listen to your shit."

"Well excuse me Mark, but this is none of your concern," Chris snapped back. He looked back at me. "You not only destroyed a happy relationship, but you left me high and dry last night Jeffery. And I did not appreciate that one little bit."

I glared at him. He was being even more of a jackass about all this than I thought he was going to be. "Just go away Chris."

"I'm not going anywhere Jeff Hardy."

"Oh yes you will," James said. He got right in Chris's face. "I've listened to you run your mouth ever since I got here and like everyone else, I find myself to be quite annoyed by you. But unlike everyone else, I don't take being annoyed very well. I tend to handle it badly."

Chris narrowed his eyes. "I don't know who you think you are, but I do know that this is none of your concern. Right now, I have issues with Jeff."

"Well as the very thing standing between you and him, I suggest you run along and leave him be," James said softly. His tone clearly told me that Chris was going to be in a world of hurt if he didn't. "Because if you do something to him, I'm going to take a personal interest in you. And believe me, that is the last thing in the world you want."

I stepped over to Mark so I could whisper to him. "James looks ready to kill him."

Mark nodded. "He is ready to kill him," he whispered back. "Jericho's marked for death. He makes one wrong move and James will destroy him."

The stare down between Chris and James seemed to go on forever. In the end, Chris lost, and he slinked away like the coward that he was. James watched him go before shaking his head and turning to Mark. "That one?" he asked hopefully.

Mark nodded. "Yes that one. You can do anything you want to Jericho."

I actually took a step back when I saw the excited gleam in James's eyes. It made him look even more psychotic than usual, which I hadn't thought to be possible. I suddenly realized that Matt didn't know what James really was.

James looked at me and immediately seemed to know what I was thinking. "I wouldn't tell Matt what I like to do in my spare time," he said with a grin. "You wouldn't want to get banned from hanging out with me, would you?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not sure hanging out with you is a good thing."

"It's not," Mark said. "But my ass is going to hell anyway, so I figured what more do I have to lose?"

James kissed Mark and laughed. "Oh Marky, you're so funny." He grabbed us by the wrists and started dragging us along. "Now come on! Let's get moving. I'm hungry."

XXXXXXXX

Matt's POV

I waited outside Evan's locker room while Glenn went in to assess the situation. I knew there was a good chance that Evan wasn't going to talk to me, which I would understand completely. I wouldn't want to talk to me either if I was in his shoes. God, what was wrong with me? How could I have let everything get this out of control? Why hadn't I just had the guts to confess to Evan the first time around?

_Because you were a coward that was in serious denial, _James's voice told me. _You couldn't accept the fact that you have some sort of feelings for Jeff so you tried to hide behind the love of a man you obviously were not truly in love with._

Damn it, I needed a break from James. His voice was becoming my fucking conscience or something (which was ironic, because he seemed to be the kind of person who didn't have one himself). I leaned back against the wall and sighed. I just wanted to run the hell away, but I knew that would be a mistake. The sooner I got the air cleared between us, the better.

A minute later, Glenn came out of the room with Jay and Maria. Maria just walked away without saying a word to me, but Jay took the time to stop and confront me. "Dude, what the hell were you doing?" he asked quietly. He wasn't going to yell and scream at me; no, he was going to just talk quietly and make me feel like a bigger asshole than I already was. "I was up all night with him because he was crying. And he was crying because of you Matt."

"I know he was," I said. My voice was shaking and I hated that. "I know I fucked up. I should have handled this differently. But Jeff's my brother and it made me freak out! I know it's not an excuse for what I did, but it's the truth. I just freaked out and fucked this up even more."

Jay studied me carefully. I felt like I was going to get hit at any moment. "You listen here," he said, poking his finger into my chest. "You can talk to him and try to sort this shit out. But I swear to God, if you make this worse, I will punch you in the face. Do you understand me?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I understand."

"Good." With that, he stormed off.

I sighed and went into Evan's locker room. He looked up at me as I came in and we both froze. Neither one of us seemed to know what to say. Finally, I had to break the silence. "I know this isn't going to help at all, but I am sorry." I sounded so pathetic, but I didn't know what else to say.

Evan shook his head. "I thought we were happy."

"We were," I said weakly. "I just…I don't know."

"Well obviously you weren't or you would have cheated." He was obviously too emotionally exhausted to have any real anger in it.

I bit my lip and sat down on the chair across from him. "This wasn't supposed to happen," I told him. "It started out as a mistake. The night you went shopping with Hunter and Shawn, Jeff and I got drunk and we ended up back in his hotel room. He kissed me and one thing led to another…but I freaked out the next morning and we got into a huge fight. He confessed that we had done it before when I was twenty one and he was eighteen, but I don't remember it because I was so drunk that night. But he remembered it and that was why he was such a bastard to you."

"He wanted what I had." Evan chuckled humorlessly. "And now he has it. He won."

"I tried to tell myself it was only the alcohol that made me do it," I went on. Now that I had started, I couldn't stop myself. "But it happened again while you were out. I had tried to avoid him, but he sought me out. I was sober that second time and it just confused me even more. But it wasn't until when I reflected about what happened last night that I realized I should have just come clean in the first place. I could have spared you the pain of hearing what you did."

"Well it's a little late for that now." Evan got up and shook his head. "I know you're telling the truth and I know you probably didn't mean to hurt me like that. But you did and nothing can change that. And right now, you just need to leave me alone before I lose my cool again and start throwing shit at you."

I nodded and made my exit. I knew I definitely wasn't forgiven by any stretch of the imagination, and if he hadn't been so obviously worn down and exhausted, I would have gotten screamed at. Hell, I probably was going to get screamed out later once his anger got a second wind. _Note to self: don't let Jeff be alone with Evan any time soon. A fight will break out and one will kill the other one. That's a fucking guarantee right there._


	11. Chapter 11

Jeff's POV

The rest of the show didn't have any more really uncomfortable confrontations. Most people just kind of avoided us, which was fine with me. Shane did come by and talked to me for a little bit, and even though he didn't understand how this whole thing with Matt started, he still supported us. It would have been a touching moment with my long time friend if James had not chosen that moment to yell at Mark to break his opponent's neck (Mark was out wrestling a match and James watching on the monitor). Glenn tried to explain to James that they really weren't supposed to hurt people like that but it did not seem to register in his brain.

Once the show was over, I left with Mark, Matt, Glenn and James. Even though some people were still looking at us, I stayed as close to Matt as possible. He had been unusually quiet since he had gone to talk to Evan. "You okay Matty?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yeah I'm fine. I was just thinking that Evan's going to somehow get his stuff from my place."

Oh shit, I hadn't even thought of that. That was just an ugly confrontation waiting to happen. "Maybe we can ask him if we can mail it to him," I suggested.

Matt sighed. "I'll just call Jay tomorrow and have him ask Evan for me. I don't want to deal with it right now."

"You know what we should do," James said with a grin. "We should go get drunk."

We all groaned. I personally was way too tired to even begin to want to go through with that plan. Luckily, Mark was with me on that plan. "James, I'm tired, my knees hurt, I nearly threw my damn back out in the ring and you kept me up all of last night already. I don't want to do anything but go and sleep."

James pouted. "Fine, whatever. You people suck."

I leaned my head on Matt's shoulder. "You know, I felt like that I was back in high school again tonight," I told him. "You know, with everyone staring at us and talking about us behind our back…"

Matt grinned. "That locker room is a damn high school. We're just usually not on the wrong end of it."

I started to reply to that when I heard the squealing of tires. James, who had been walking backwards the entire time, immediately grabbed Matt and I and got us out of the way just as a car sped off out of the parking garage. It took me several seconds to realize that if we hadn't been moved, Matt and I would have been run over with that car. "Jesus Christ!" I said in disbelief. I meant to yell it, but I was so shocked that I couldn't get enough volume in my voice. "Who the hell was that?"

"Chris," Glenn growled. "He seems to feel like you two humiliated him last night and now he's acting like even more of an asshole than usual."

Well fuck, that was my fault. I could see how me taking Chris out and ditching him for my own brother would be humiliation in the arrogant of Jericho. "So he's going to solve that by running over us?" I asked.

Mark shook his head. "The boy never did have any fucking sense whatsoever."

Matt began checking me over as best as he could. "You okay?" he asked. "You're not hurt are you?"

I smiled at his concern. "I'm fine Matty." I kissed him softly. "You okay?"

"No. I'm pissed. I don't care if Chris was just doing that to scare us or if he was really trying to run us over; he's getting his ass kicked either way."

I knew that there was more to his expression than that, but I was almost afraid to get into that subject. I didn't want to even suspect that in his mind, this was just the beginning of our own little black cloud following us wherever we went. I didn't want to even think that he thought that we were getting punished for what we were doing.

Luckily, I didn't have long to dwell on that subject. Another car entered the parking garage at that moment, and it stopped right in front of us. Two guys who looked like they were in their twenties got out of the car. "Daddy!" the younger one of the two yelled as he hugged James.

"Oh God no," Glenn groaned. He looked at Mark. "Did you know they were coming?"

Mark shook his head. "I had no idea."

James ruffled his son's hair affectionately. "Hey Connor." He looked up at his other son. "Did he behave okay for you Cooper?"

Cooper nodded. "He always behaves for me Dad." He pulled Connor out of James's arms and gave him a not quite innocent kiss on the lips.

"Damn it, what is with the incest around here?" Mark asked. "Is it something in the water?"

"God I hope not," James said. "Because if I catch you and Glenn doing it, you two are so dead."

"Yeah, like I would touch Mark with a twenty foot pole," Glenn said with a roll of his eyes.

Mark frowned. "What is that supposed to mean? Am I not attractive enough for you?"

"Oh Jesus Christ Mark, just shut up," Glenn ordered.

"No! I want to know what you're thinking! Am I ugly or something?"

"You're not ugly you idiot," James said. "Glenn's just an idiot."

As that little argument carried on, Matt and I found ourselves face to face with Cooper and Connor. "So uh…you two…" Matt started to say.

"Six years," Cooper confirmed. He put his arm around Connor. "It kind of just happened."

"What did James say?"

"Fuck, he's fine with everything. Of course, we're technically only half brothers. Mark knocked Mom up with me, but James raised me as his."

I sensed that there was a lot of bitterness towards Mark from Cooper. I looked at Connor, who was staring at me like I was a prize or something. "Uh…hi," I said slowly.

He giggled. "Your hair has red in it. Red like blood. Blood on my hands. Blood on my knife. The bitch is dead. Ding dong, the bitch is dead!"

Matt took a step back and protectively took me back with him. "What the hell is he saying?"

Cooper shook his head. "He just babbles like that sometimes. He's not right in the head at all. You'll get used to it."

I had a feeling Connor probably had killed a bitch with a knife before, but I wasn't going to voice that opinion at the moment. As long as Matt and I weren't targeted, I planned to mind my own business as much as possible.

Once James, Mark and Glenn decided to stop arguing, James decided he was going to take his boys out to get something to eat. I could sense that there was something more to that plan that he wasn't saying, and I knew that Mark did too. In fact, Mark took James off to the side and they had their own little hushed conversation. Glenn distracted Matt by talking about something not that important, and I decided to eavesdrop on Mark and James.

"You don't need to go with me wherever I go Mark," James said angrily. "The boys and I aren't going to get caught."

"You know how out of control you get with them though," Mark snapped. "You know that you let them talk you into doing stuff that isn't such a great idea."

"Marky come on, I'm not going to let anything get out of control tonight. Stop worrying."

"I'm not worried."

"Yes you are and it's adorable." James kissed Mark and got in the back seat of Cooper's car. Mark sighed and shook his head before getting in his own vehicle. "Come on people, let's go!" he growled.

I grabbed Matt's hand and we got in the backseat while Glenn got up front. "You see Matty? We're not total freaks," I said quietly as Mark turned on the radio really loudly. "There are people out there like us."

Matt nodded. "Yeah, I guess there are. Although I have to say, we are much more normal than Cooper and Connor."

I grinned. I couldn't disagree there. "And if they can make it work, we can make it work."

He frowned. "Are you saying that I'm thinking we can't?"

"I just know you Matty. You tend to over think things and you miss out because of it."

"Well you don't think enough and you get burned all the fucking time."

I glared at him and he glared at me. Finally I shook my head and kissed him. "You are so impossible sometimes," I said happily as I rested my head on his shoulder.

He snorted. "Now that's just the pot calling the kettle black right there." I could tell by the tone of his voice that he didn't really mean that.

I closed my eyes. The whole very surreal day was coming to an end and I was safe in Matt's arms once again. "I love you Matty."

"I love you too Jeff."

"Oh gag me with a fucking spoon," Glenn muttered.

"I'll gag you with my fist knocking your teeth down your throat if you talk like a Valley girl ever again," Mark growled.

I sighed. I was suddenly really glad that Matt and I weren't like that. I doubted I could keep up with all that fighting. I buried my head even more into Matt's shoulder and soon I drifted off to sleep.


	12. Chapter 12

James's POV

Now I hadn't lied completely to Mark. The boys and I really did go out to get something to eat. And we also didn't do anything too outrageous. We just tried to hunt down Jericho. The boy had a lot of nerve to try to run down Jeff and Matt, especially after I told him to stay out of this. It felt like I had been deliberately disrespected and I did not like that at all.

"Dad do you even know where to begin looking for him?" Cooper asked. He was trying to drive and keep Connor somewhat settled at the same time. "I'm not going to drive around to random places all night just because he's ruining your pet project. It's not like I give a shit if Matt and Jeff work out or not."

"I like Jeff," Connor piped up. "His hair is pretty."

I ignored Connor's comment and focused on Cooper. "Come on Coop, if we catch him, we can have all kinds of fun."

"Yeah, if we find him. That's a big if at this point because when you don't have any idea where to look, that's a sign we're not going to get him tonight."

And as much as I hated to admit it, the bastard was right. Chris had way too much of a head start on me, and he wasn't staying at any of the hotels the other wrestlers were. I had to face the facts: I was having one of my rare "off" nights. "Ugh, I hate it when I can't find people," I complained. "It means I have to wait that much longer to do what I want to do to him."

"Just get your hands on him at the next show," Cooper said. "It's not like you're never going to see him again."

"But that won't be until Smackdown again," I told him. "Mark's not doing house shows anymore because he's trying to rest his body up as much as he can. And Jericho's deliciously diabolical. He could plan something and go through with it before I can get my hands on him."

Connor turned around to face me. "Deliciously diabolical?"

"Yes, I did just say that. Do you have a problem with that?"

"No. It just makes me laugh." He giggled to prove his point.

I rolled my eyes and patted him on the head. Connor was a sweetheart, even though he was a mass murdering psychopath. I wished more people could see that, mainly so I wouldn't have to try to keep him in hiding half the time. He had made more than a few enemies, and it was actually kind of sad. "Well what the fuck are we supposed to do now?" I asked. "I still want to hunt down Chris but obviously you're not going to let that happen, are you Cooper?"

Cooper glared back at me through the rearview mirror. "Dad, if you wanted to hunt him down, you should have followed him immediately after he tried to run down Matt and Jeff. For all we know, he could be out of the fucking state by now. Let's just go back to the hotel, let you sleep off the remains of your hangovers that obviously are playing a role in your offness tonight, and then we'll get Chris later. Can you not be difficult for once in your life and go with that mother fucking plan?"

I raised my eyebrows. I had never heard Cooper be quite that bossy before. Now normally I hated anyone talking to me like that, but my boys had always been able to get away with just about anything with me. "Okay boy, calm down there. You're right; I think drinking every night since I've gotten here has caught up with me. If I'm going to hunt down an arrogant Canadian, I need a little rest."

Cooper seemed surprised by my change of heart, but he didn't argue with me anymore. He just turned the car around and started heading back to the hotel. I stared at the window and watched as the rain began to fall. I didn't mention the fact that I had been drinking even more than normal because I had stopped taking my anti-psychotic pills. I had run out the second night I was here, and I never felt like trying to get more. I was tired of being dependant on them. God, it's been over ten years; I should have developed more self control with age. Besides, I figured if I stayed drunk or hungover, my tendency to get completely out of control would be impaired by the booze or my headache.

And honestly, I was tired of taking them. It had been two decades since I had gone on them, and it wasn't like I took them that consistently anyway. Sometimes I went months without popping a single one. Sure those months were usually filled with chaos, but it wasn't like my life was normal with them. And if I was going to deal with Chris, I wanted to show him just who exactly he was dealing with. Nobody was going to mess up my plans and get away with it. Absolutely nobody.

XXXXXXXXX

Evan's POV

Every part of me hurt that night. You know all those clichés about pain and heartbreak? Well they're true. I feel like I'm about to die because my heart is so fucking broken. I wish I would have had the courage to scream at Matt earlier, but I didn't. Now I was going to have to wait until I saw him again, and honestly, I didn't know if I would be able to do it then. Part of me still loved him, even though he had hurt me like this.

Now Jeff was another story completely. I knew I would lost my cool completely if I came face to face with him. He had stolen Matt away from me. He had something that I obviously didn't, and it made me sad and furious at the same time. If he had wanted Matt so damn badly, why the hell couldn't he have done something before I had come into the picture? Why did he have to take Matt away from me? What the hell had I ever done to him?"

Jay, who had been texting someone for awhile now, looked over at me. "Are you okay?" he asked gently.

"No," I replied honestly. "I feel like complete and total shit." I was tired of trying to pretend that I was going to be okay. I didn't feel that way, so I was going to show it.

He winced. "I'm sorry."

"Why? You're not the one that hurt me. Matt and Jeff did it." Yes I knew Matt never meant to hurt me, but he did, so I was reserving the right to be mad at him. And I had a feeling Jeff didn't give a shit what he was putting me through. He had what he wanted and he was probably as happy as a pig in shit at the moment.

"I know, but I don't like seeing you like this." Jay put his cell phone on the table. "I asked Shane if he and Shannon could get your stuff from Matt's house. I figured the last thing you wanted to do was go over there."

"Thanks," I said gratefully. He was definitely right. I did not want to deal with Matt and Jeff right now. My wounds were way too fresh at the moment.

"You want anything? Pizza? Ice cream? A puppy?"

I frowned. "A puppy?"

"Puppies are cute and cute is good. Cute makes people happy." Jay was grasping at straws and it was so obvious.

"I'm not really in the mood for happy," I told him. "I appreciate the effort, but I think I'm going to wallow in self pity for the rest of the night."

"Oh, okay then," Jay said uncertainly. "Just tell me if you need anything."

"I will."

XXXXXXXXXX

Matt's POV

Jeff woke up just as I crawled into bed with him. The way he rubbed his eyes and looked around with a confused look on his face was just adorable. "When did we get back to the hotel Matty?" he asked me.

"Awhile ago," I told him. I snuggled up to him and gave him a little kiss. "I just let you sleep while I took a shower."

He pouted his lips. "Aw, but I wanted to shower with you," he whined.

I grinned. "We'll take one together in the morning."

"You promise?"

"Yeah, I promise."

"Good." He kissed me again, becoming more and more awake by the minute.

"I thought you were tired," I said as he climbed on top of me.

He grinned. "Well I'm not right now."

I chuckled as his lips met mine again. The man had sex on the brain. He had been that way for God knows how long now. Only now he was going to be that way with just me now. The thought of it made me so happy that it made me forget any worries I had about what people were probably thinking about us at the moment. "You know, I think Mark and James are into some pretty kinky shit," I said as I took Jeff's shirt off. I was still shirtless from my shower, so I didn't have to worry about that pesky clothing item. "I think I should ask Mark if I could borrow some handcuffs."

"Oh, so now you want me at your mercy Matty?" Jeff asked. He didn't sound opposed to the idea at all. "Does the thought of me all tied up make you hot?"

"I think the idea of you at all makes me hot," I told him. I flipped us over so I was on top of him. "I think you know that already." I kissed his eager mouth eagerly, enjoying the way he was moaning beneath me.

"Fuck me Matty," he begged sweetly. "Just do it. Fuck me hard."

Well hell, who was I to refuse a request like that? I spread his legs and had him wrap them around my waist before slamming into him as hard as I could. He let out a scream, but it was filled with enough pleasure that I knew the pleasure was overriding the pain. "Fuck…so fucking tight…" I gasped out.

"Matt…oh God…feels so good…" Jeff moaned as I began moving inside of him. He clawed at my back, leaving scratch marks that felt like they were bleeding. The pain only turned me on even more (Jesus, was I a masochist or something?) and I fucked him even harder because of it.

"Matt…gonna…gonna…" Jeff never really got the whole sentence out, but I figured out what he had been trying to say when he came on my stomach and chest. As he tried to regain his breath, I kept thrusting into him until my own release took me over and I bit his shoulder to try to stifle my yell.

"Ow," he complained as he ran his hands up and down my back. "Your teeth hurt Matty."

"My teeth hurt? Your nails fucking kill dude. You have fucking Wolverine claws or something."

He laughed. "That's awesome. I love Wolverine."

I rolled my eyes. "You are a dork."

"But you love me anyway."

"Damn straight I do. And nothing's going to change that."


	13. Chapter 13

Jeff's POV

Matt and I spent the next couple of days at his house, doing nothing but eating, sleeping and making love. We had three days off before we had a some house shows and promotional stuff to do, so we were making the most of our time together. Now I knew we still had to get Evan's stuff packed up and we had to tell Daddy about our relationship. There was no way we could keep it from him. He was going to find out one way or another, so we thought it would be better if we were just honest with him. And despite being slightly afraid of what he was going to say or do, I felt completely at peace for the first time in years.

On our last day home, I was flipping through the channels and happened to stop on the world news channel. Normally I didn't watch the news at all (that was more of Matt's thing), but the headline of **Triple Homicide in Houston** caught my attention. I put down the remote and listened to the report. Apparently three teenaged campers had been found very early this morning hanging from the trees, their bodies opened up completely and their intestines on the ground below them. While I was digesting that gross information, my mind began drifting towards Mark. He lived in Houston and James and his kids were staying there with them (as far as I knew anyway). I couldn't help but wonder if they were connected to this.

_Stop it,_ a voice in my head scolded me. _You don't want to know. You know you don't want to know that, so don't think about it. Let Mark take care of everything. He knows what to do with them._

Matt came in a few minutes after the report was finished. "I called Daddy," he said. "He's going to come over in a little bit."

I sat up. "Are we telling him today?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I think the sooner we do it, the better."

"What do you think he's going to say?"

"I have no idea. I'm just hoping for the best."

I was too. I wanted Daddy to accept our relationship. His opinion was very important to the both of us. If he wasn't okay with us being together, it was going to upset us really badly. He was our fucking hero and we didn't want to disappoint him. "What if he doesn't accept it though?" I asked. "What if he thinks we're disgusting now?"

Matt sighed and pulled me up to my feet. "Come here baby," he said as he hugged me tightly.

"He liked Evan a lot," I pouted. "What if he gets mad that you chose me over him? Or what if he says he's okay with us, but he's really not? We usually can tell when he's just saying stuff to be polite."

Matt smoothed my hair down and kissed the side of my head. "You need to stop worrying. Daddy loves both of us. He might not be one hundred percent accepting of this at first, but that's to be expected. We're brothers. Not everyone is going to be okay with this at first."

_That's assuming everyone will be okay with it eventually._ I sighed and pulled away from Matt. He had made me feel a little better, but it didn't soothe all of my fears. The only person who would be able to do that was Dad.

We didn't have to wait too long for him to arrive. Daddy wasn't the type to keep anyone waiting. In fact, he always got on our case when we were late. Of course, Matt always liked to say he was "fashionably" late. Me? I was always just late. But I always figured that was part of my charm, so I went with it.

"So you boys need to talk to me about something?" Dad said as he came in and sat down in the living room.

I sat back down on the couch and Matt quickly sat next to me. Butterflies were going all around in my stomach. This was the moment of truth. I grabbed one of Matt's hand, a movement that was not lost on Dad.

Matt cleared his throat and sighed. "You know how I told you that Evan and I broke up?"

Dad nodded. "Yeah. I was surprised, I'm not going to lie. I thought he was good for you."

I winced. That had not been what I had wanted to hear. Matt squeezed my hand and kept on talking. "I know you were, but you need to know that it was because I fell in love with someone else," he said.

I could see Dad staring at our hands. Realization filled his eyes. "You two--"

"Yeah," I interrupted. "We're uh…together."

The phrase "awkward silence" was given a whole new meaning during the next several minutes. Nobody seemed to know what to do or say. None of us were really looking at each other. I was afraid to even look at Daddy. I didn't want to see any disappointment or disgust in his gaze. It would kill me if I did see that.

Finally Daddy had to break the silence. "Are you boys happy together?" he asked slowly. He was trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible, which meant that he wasn't completely happy about the situation.

We both nodded. I was sure we looked like we had just been yelled at.

"Well I guess that's what's important," Dad said with a sigh. "You would have to really love each other to risk everything for this."

"You're mad," I said bluntly. There was no point in beating around the bush.

"I'm not mad," he told me. "I'm just…shocked. I just need time to digest this information."

And that's where we left things. He took off a couple minutes later, saying he had to go to the store or something like that. Matt walked him to the door while I laid back on the couch completely. I didn't know how to feel at the moment. Part of me had hoped he would embrace the idea of me and Matt being together completely, but I had also known all along that had been completely foolish on my part. Honestly, the reaction we got was probably the best that could have been realistically been expected. He hadn't immediately cursed us and told us we were disgusting pigs, but he also did need time to get used to the idea.

Matt came back into the living room. "Shannon and Shane are pulling up in the driveway right now," he told me. "They're probably here to get Evan's stuff."

I sighed and groaned at the same time. "Great," I muttered.

"You don't have to help pack you know. I know Evan was never your favorite person in the world and I'm sure you're the last person he wants touching his things."

I nodded. "Are you sure you don't want my help?"

"I think just three of us can manage." Matt bent down and kissed me on the lips. "Just do me a favor and make dinner tonight? I don't feel like cooking."

I could handle that. I sealed the deal with another kiss and then got up and went to the kitchen. If I was cooking tonight, I wanted to see what I had to work with. I searched through the pantry and the refrigerator, trying to think of something that sounded good. I wanted to do something romantic for the two of us to take our minds off of Daddy's reaction.

The phone rang and I ran to answer it. "Hello?"

"It's Marky's favorite serial killer," James said happily. He sounded even more psychotic than usual, which I suspected was not a good thing. "Matt hasn't watched the news lately, has he?"

"You mean has he seen the triple homicide down in Houston?" I asked. "No, he hasn't seen that. And did you do that?"

"I plead the Fifth," he immediately said. "And that wasn't the report I was talking about."

"Well what are you talking about?"

"Well after the whole Houston slaying thing, there was another reported set of murders in Florida. Two boys killed a set of brothers because they caught the brothers kissing."

My stomach immediately turned to ice. People getting killed for incest? That was not a thought I wanted to deal with at the moment. "So?" I tried to say casually. "What does that have to do with anything?"

James chuckled. "Well Matty obviously has some sort of hero complex. If he thinks for one second that your relationship with him will jeopardize you, he will leave you to keep you safe. And him seeing that kind of news report would definitely start raising doubts in his mind."

I gulped. As much as I hated to admit it, I knew James was right. Matt would leave me for my own well being if the situation called for it. Just thinking that made it hard to breathe. Now that I had Matt, the thought of losing him made me want to die. "Well I'll make sure he won't see it," I said. I didn't know how I would manage that, but I would do my best to find a way to make it happen.

"Well I'm rooting for you Rainbow." James cursed under his breath as someone kicked open a door on his end of the line. "Aw shit. I have to go. Marky's not really happy with me at the moment."

"Well that's what happens when you kill people," I said. All I got in response was dial tone.

"Who's killing people?"

I gasped and turned around. Matt was standing behind me. "Nobody's killing anyone," I quickly said. "It's uh…metaphor for life."

He frowned. "What?"

"What?" I repeated.

"That's what I said."

"I know. I said it too."

"Jeff--"

I quickly kissed him, not wanting to get the third degree at the moment. "I love you," I said with a grin.

"I love you too," he replied. "Even though you are a complete weirdo."

I pretended to be offended as I smacked him on the ass for that. He just smirked and smacked my ass in return. "Don't start anything you can't finish Matty," I warned him.

"I won't," he assured me. He just grinned sheepishly. "You know, I don't even remember why I came down here."

"You just wanted to see me," I said with a grin.

"You know, that probably was it."

"MATT GET BACK UP HERE RIGHT NOW!" Shannon yelled. "YOU CAN FUCK JEFF LATER FOR ALL I CARE, BUT RIGHT NOW, YOU ARE HELPING US GET EVAN'S SHIT PACKED!"

I giggled as Matt reluctantly went back upstairs. That was our Shannon: lewd, crude, and straight to the point. And we wouldn't have him any other way.


	14. Chapter 14

Matt's POV

I knew Jeff was hiding something from me. It wasn't hard to figure out. Every time, I picked up a newspaper, he snatched it out of my hands and threw it away. Every time I turned on the news, he immediately changed the channel. And he kept needing to hear that I would never leave him. I had to assure him I was going to stay with him forever. Now I wasn't a genius or anything like that, but I knew something must have had happened to make him insecure like this. So when we had to leave home and start doing promotional work for the company, I sent him on a Skittles hunt and I immediately grabbed a newspaper Shane had slipped me when Jeff hadn't been looking. I leafed through it and quickly found what Jeff hadn't wanted me to see. Two brothers who had been in an incestuous relationship had been killed down in Florida. My heart just sank down into my stomach. The killers had confessed that the relationship had been why the brothers had been murdered. _Oh God, what if something like that happened to me and Jeff? What if--_

No, I couldn't let my mind go there. I had promised Jeff I would never leave him, and I didn't want to break that promise. I didn't want to hurt him like that. I quickly crumbled up the newspaper and threw it away. I was just going to have to make sure we were really careful so the wrong people wouldn't see us.

The minutes began to tick by and there was still no sign of Jeff. With my mind still somewhat preoccupied by what I had read, I became more worried than I normally would have been. I left the room and started heading towards the vending machines. "Jeff?" I called out. "Jeff where are you?" I rounded the corner and saw Jeff was staring at Mark and James. Something was obviously going on and it obviously wasn't good. James was crouched down on the ground with a wild look in his eyes, and he was clutching at his hair like he was going to yank it out. Mark was beside him, trying to talk him into some sort of state of normalcy. Jeff was backed up against the vending machine. He looked positively freaked out.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked. I went to Jeff's side, scared by the look on his face. "Jeff talk to me."

Jeff shook his head. "Mark what's wrong with him? Why is he acting like this?"

"He stopped taking his pills," Mark replied. He was trying to pat James down to make sure he didn't have anything in his pockets. At least that was what he appeared to be doing anyway.

"What pills?" I asked. I still had no idea what was going on.

"His anti-psychotic pills," Jeff said quietly. He sounded really scared now. "Mark--"

"Jeff, just stay back and let me pretend I have control over this situation!" Mark snapped irritably. He grabbed James's face and looked into his eyes. "You need to snap out of this psychotic state right this second Lawson. I fucking mean it. You have to fucking get your act together. You cannot fall apart here."

"I'm not falling apart," James hissed angrily. "Something in my head is just screwed up….a wire's missing…can't get it to work…" he began punching himself on the side of the head as hard as he possibly could. "Blood…guts…kill…have to kill must kill have to…" His voice trailed off as he got back up to his feet. "You remember what we did to my mother Mark? You remember when we finally got rid of that fucking bitch?"

"James, now is not the time to talk about this," Mark said quietly. He looked around. "Fuck, Glenn better hurry up with that sedative. Crazy bastard is going to lose it completely if we don't get him calmed down."

James looked into my eyes, and I was shocked by something I should have seen before. The charm he normally possessed had been stripped away from him by his own mental meltdown, and all that was left was darkness. Something was way beyond not right with him. His ramblings about having to kill were not just ramblings of a mad man; he really did look like he wanted to kill someone. "Why the hell is he here?" I asked Mark. "Why would you bring someone who--"

"I didn't fucking bring him today!" Mark growled. "He was supposed to have stayed home, but he followed me." He shook his head. "Just get Jeff back to your room. I'll fucking talk to you about this later."

Jeff grabbed me by the back of the shirt and started pulling me away from Mark and James. "Come on," he urged me. "I want Mark to take care of this."

I shook my head as I let him drag me along. "What the hell happened back there?" I asked. "I still don't know what the hell is going."

Jeff just shook his head. "James just kind of scared me by freaking out at me. He snuck up on me and just started yelling and getting all up in my face. I don't even think he knew who I was. I think the only person he recognizes right now is Mark."

I sighed. I was definitely going to have to talk to Mark about James. There was something going on with him that I had definitely been kept in the dark about. "Are you okay though? He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"No, I just said that, didn't I?" Jeff seemed really irritated now, which was usually how he got after he had the shit scared out of him. He took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself down. "I didn't even get a chance to get my Skittles," he pouted.

I patted him on the shoulder. "I'll get you some later, I promise."

"Okay," he said happily. "I'm going to--" he stopped talking as we rounded the corner, and I soon saw why. Coming from one direction was Evan, and from the other one was Chris. "Oh boy," he muttered. "This is not good."

I nodded along with him. I couldn't really disagree with that statement. I tried to keep Jeff moving and it seemed like Evan wanted to just avoid us too. Unfortunately, Chris had other ideas.

"Well well well," Chris drawled out, deliberately stepping in our way. "Matt and Jeff are here together….what a surprise."

I deliberately put myself between Chris and Jeff. I hadn't forgotten the way that he had tried to run us down not that long ago. "What do you want Jericho?" I asked.

"I want a lot of things Matt," he replied. His voice was low and it had dangerous edge to it. "But right now, I would like for you to give Jeff and me some alone time, because the sight of you two together makes me sick to my stomach."

"Fuck off Chris," Jeff snapped. "I don't have anything to say to you."

Evan, who could have just kept walking away, stopped to join in on the confrontation. "Leave them alone Chris," he ordered. "Nobody wants to hear you whine and bitch right now."

Chris glared at my ex. "Why are you taking their side? Jeff stole his own brother away from you. He made Matt sick in the head, just like he has always been. He made Matt leave you."

"Nobody made me do a damn thing," I growled. "Everything I did was my decision, however right or wrong it was. Now I suggest you go back to the hole you crawled out of before I break your face with my fist."

Chris looked at the three of us, his cold eyes revealing that the cogs in his brains were working in over time. I thought for a minute that he was going to try to challenge me, but then he looked at something behind me that wasn't Jeff and he backed away quickly.

"That's right Jericho! Run like the fucking coward that you are! Hide all you want! I will fucking get you alone one of these days, you fucking asshole!"

Jeff and I turned around to see James trying to go after Chris. Trying was the key word because Mark and Glenn were holding him back. He had snapped out of his psychotic state he was in and now he was obviously more in control of himself.

"God, Chris really does rub him the wrong way," Jeff muttered. "He's not going to let this go until he gets Jericho all alone with no witnesses."

"Why do I not like the sound of that?" I asked.

"Because it's bad. I don't even like the sound of it and I hate Chris." We both glanced back at Evan, who was now glaring at us. It didn't take a genius to figure out that he had only helped out with Chris because everyone hated that asshole. It did not mean that he wasn't pissed at us anymore. "Evan…" I started to say.

Evan's fist connected with my face before I knew what the hell was happening. Jeff immediately lunged at Evan, and the two of them started rolling around on the ground and punching the shit out of each other. Jeff was obviously the bigger and stronger one of the two, but Evan was fuled by rage and it made him like ten times stronger than usual.

"Fight!" James yelled. "Fight fight fight fight!" He started bouncing off the walls like he was on crack or something. The man desperately needed his anti-psychotic pills back in the worst way. _Now I definitely need to ask Mark why in the hell he's friends with someone this unstable. This is insane._

Mark and Glenn grabbed Jeff and Evan and pulled them apart. "That's enough!" Mark shouted angrily. "Both of you knock this shit off right now!"

"He hit Matt!" Jeff snarled. His lip was busted and the blood was dripping down to his chin.

"I kind of deserved it though," I pointed out. I helped Mark restrain Jeff as best I could. "I did cheat on him and break his heart into a thousand pieces. I think he's entitled to a punch or two."

"Oh that's right Matt, play the fucking martyr," Evan growled at me as Glenn dragged him away. "Play like you always do, you fucking son of a bitch!"

That set Jeff off again, and Mark and I almost didn't keep a hold of him as he tried to go after Evan again. Meanwhile, James was laughing like this was the most hilarious thing he had ever seen in his life. "I like baby Bourne when he's pissed," he declared. "He's feisty!"

I sighed and shook my head. I had been waiting for Evan's pent up anger at me to come out and it finally did. I wasn't upset by getting hit in the face, but I definitely wasn't happy that Jeff had gotten hit too. _Although I shouldn't be surprised; Evan's got every right to be pissed at him too._ "James, can you just shut up? I don't want to hear you talk right now."

He shook his head. "No I will not shut up Matt. If you ever suggest that again, I will kill you."

Jeff gasped and looked at James with a horrified look. Mark just kind of froze in his tracks with a deer in the headlights expression on his face. James just laughed though. "I was kidding you idiots! God, you people are way too sensitive." He turned around and happily went off on his own, which judging from the way Mark immediately went after him, was not a good thing.

I looked at Jeff, who looked like he was now a ghost or something. "Well this day has been way too damn interesting," I said with a shake of my head. "Drama with Jericho, drama with Evan, finding out James is a psycho…which I think you knew already and now I'm pissed because you didn't tell me…"

"I didn't want you freaking out and making him think he's got to view you as an enemy," Jeff said quietly.

"Well now I have all sorts of ideas about him, and none of him are good," I muttered. I checked my watch and sighed. "Come on, let's get going. We've got an autograph signing to go to later, matches to wrestle and a Deadman to interrogate."


	15. Chapter 15

Jeff's POV

I was exhausted at the end of the day. The autograph signing was crazy; there were a whole bunch of girls screaming and grabbing at me like I was a prize or something. I had to resist the urge to jump into Matt's arms and demand that he protect me. It would have attracted way too much attention for us, and that was not what we really needed. And then we had to go and wrestle a house show. I fought Adam like usual, and I kicked his sorry ass all over the building. Of course he tried to tease me by asking if I was putting on a show for Matty. I told him that if I wanted to put on a show for Matty, I would do it in the bedroom.

Dumbass Adam wrestled with a hard on for the rest of the match due the images in his perverted brain.

Now Matt and I were back at the hotel and he was dragging me to Mark's room. I wasn't sure how good of an idea it was to interrogate Mark about James; there was something about their relationship that was just plain bizarre. And I wasn't sure just how much Mark was willing to share with Matt. They weren't all that close. But I didn't feel like arguing with Matt about it, so I tagged along like a good little brother.

Glenn answered the door after Matt knocked on it. "What do you two want?" he asked.

"We want to talk to Mark," Matt answered.

"Let them in Glenn," Mark called out. "It's okay if it's those two."

Glenn didn't seem to think it was okay, but he let us in anyway. I looked around the room and saw Mark sitting at the table with James. James had a knife out and he was just stabbing the table over and over again, his face completely devoid of any real expression, his eyes showing that he was lost in his own world.

"What the fuck?" Matt muttered under his breath. His eyes turned to Mark for an explanation.

"His moods go all over the place when he's off the meds," Mark explained. He was watching James carefully, the concern clearly written on his face. "I used to think he was bipolar, but he doesn't actually go into a high and a low. He just goes…hell, I don't even know."

Glenn sat down on the bed. "Cooper's having the doctor refill the prescription. He'll pick it up before he and Connor meet back up with us."

Well that was nice to know. At least we could look forward to the crazy man being put back on his leash. I stayed behind Matt a little, still not quite sure if we could trust James in his current state of mind.

Matt studied Mark carefully. "It's time to talk Deadman. I want to know what the deal is with James."

"There are some things that are better left not known Hardy," Mark said, pointing out the obvious.

"Well I disagree," Matt insisted. He was going to be stubborn to the very end.

James suddenly stopped stabbing the table and looked over at me. His face was still completely blank, but his eyes were beginning to show a little bit of a manic gleam. "I was in love with my sister once," he informed me. "She was my twin. Annabelle…only girl I ever loved." He traced his finger over the blade of the knife. "I hated my family. Dad was a pig, Mom was a bitch, Jacob was a moron…Annabelle was my other half. She had everything I didn't. A soul…a conscience…a care for what's right and what's wrong." He shook his head. "We were doomed from the start. She cared too much about what other people thought. She wasn't willing to risk everything for me. And I made things worse by being what I was. A freak…a monster…" His voice trailed off and his eyes left mine and switched to Matt's. "A killer."

Matt stepped in front of me immediately, which just made James laugh. "I don't want to kill little Jeffey," he said as he shook his head violently. "I know I scared the shit out of him earlier, but I don't plan to kill him. I like him. And I like you Matty. You two are fun. You two were what Annabelle and I never were. You were what I thought we could have been." He leaned back in his chair, his eyes beginning to cloud over. "But she left me, and Marky had to pick up the pieces."

"Yeah, just like I always fucking do," Mark muttered under his breath.

I tried to step out from behind Matt, who was still in overprotective mode. "How long have you known?" I asked timidly.

"How long have I known what?" Mark asked back.

"That James…you know…"

"I've known it since the first day I met him," Mark said honestly. "I think we killed a stray cat together or something like that."

Matt and I exchanged looks. If Mark had done that with James, did that mean…no, it couldn't mean that…

Glenn rolled his eyes. "Oh for the love of God, Mark's killed people too!" he snapped impatiently. "He's not a saint by any fucking means. He might not have a victims list as long as James's, but my dear older brother has quite the past."

Mark glared at his younger brother. "Thank you for putting that so bluntly. I'm sure Matt and Jeff appreciate your honesty, because I sure as hell don't."

I wasn't completely surprised by what Glenn had revealed. Mark had always seemed like a badass mother fucker to me. I had always thought maybe he could have killed someone in a bar fight or something like that. "But that's just the past, right?" I asked slowly. "I mean, you just _used_ to kill people, right?"

"Does that really matter at the moment?" Matt asked. He looked like he was having a hard time processing all this information.

"It does to me," I replied.

"I haven't killed anyone in quite awhile," Mark said. "I'm a "good" boy now."

James snorted and burst out laughing. "Oh God, tell me you did not seriously say that Marky. You a good boy?" He fell out of his chair because he was laughing so hard.

Mark looked offended. "I'm better than you, you jackass!"

James responded by continuing to laugh.

"Okay then, we're just going to be leaving now," Matt said. He grabbed me and basically shoved my ass out of the room. "It's a fucking crazy clown circus in there," he whispered once we were in the hallway.

I glanced back at the door. "Yeah, but it's kind of a fun crazy clown circus."

He looked at me like I was insane too. "What?"

"Well what else am I supposed to say?" I asked defensively. "I mean, I know they're the bad guys and all that, but Mark is still Mark, no matter what he's done in the past. Hell, even Hunter has said that if Mark hadn't killed someone before, he would wrestle naked on live TV. And James….okay, he's completely nuts and dangerous, but his making you jealous plan helped us be together, so I'm okay with him."

Matt just kept looking at me for the longest time before shaking his head. "You have crazy criteria for what makes a person okay."

Okay, maybe he had a good point. But I had a better one for him. "Well think of it this way: do _you_ want to be the person who tries to stop James from doing whatever the hell he wants?"

He sighed in defeat. "No, I kind of just want to stay away from him now. There are things you do not fuck with at all, and that is crazy serial killers."

I grinned and kissed him on the cheek. "Now you're talking sense Matty." I grabbed his hand and gave it a good squeeze. "Let's go have hot, sweaty sex now."

He rolled his eyes. "Is that all you ever think about Jeff?"

"No," I replied honestly. "I also think about Skittles and Pixie Stix and cartoons. But sex does take up most of my thinking time."

"Well at least you're up front about it," Matt said with a grin. He tossed me over his shoulder, laughing at my demands to put me down. He knew I wasn't being completely serious. I liked being carried around by him. It made me happy.

Little did I know that was going to be the happiest I would feel for quite awhile after that night.


	16. Chapter 16

Matt's POV

Dad called me before Jeff and I had to leave for a TV taping. At first I almost didn't answer because I didn't know who it was and I was tired. But I did answer it in the end and I ended up being glad I did. "Hello?" I said as I sat up

"Hello Matt," Dad replied. He sounded wide awake, just like he always did in the morning. How he could always be a morning person is beyond me. "I didn't wake you up, did I?"

"Yeah, but it's okay," I assured him. "Jeff and I have to get going soon anyway."

"Oh, okay. I just wanted to talk to you about your relationship with Jeff real quick before I let you go."

I sat straight up, making Jeff stir a little bit. I was almost kind of worried at this point. "What about it?"

"Look Matt, I'm not going to pretend to understand how and why this happened between the two of you. I just want you two to be happy. And if being together makes you two happy, then I'm happy too."

I grinned happily. "Are you serious?"

"Would I have woken you up to tell you this if I wasn't?" Dad replied. "Good grief Matt, I'm not Jeff. I don't wake people up to tell them random shit that isn't true."

"Good point," I said with a chuckle. "I'll see you in a couple days Daddy."

"Alright then. Bye Matt."

"Bye Dad."

Jeff woke up as I hung up the phone. "What's going on?" he asked.

I grinned at him. "Daddy's okay with us being together."

He sat up too. "Are you serious?"

I nodded. "Of course I am. He literally just called to give us his blessing." I licked my lips and started running my fingers up and down Jeff's arm. "You know what we should do now? We should celebrate."

"Yeah," he said in agreement. "We should eat Skittles until we puke."

My face kind of fell. That had not been what I had in mind when I said we should celebrate. "Uh…Skittles?"

Jeff burst out laughing. "God Matt, you are so gullible! Do you really think I would choose Skittles over sex?"

"Knowing you--yes!" I pulled him close to me so I could kiss him deeply. "You are not just my boyfriend; you are my little brother. And all little brothers are inherently evil."

He rolled his eyes as I climbed on top of him. "Oh like older brothers are saints?" he asked as I kissed and sucked on his collarbone. "I happen to think you and your kind are bossy, and mean and you like to spoil my fun."

"Oh yeah?" I challenged. My hands danced teasingly on the hem line of his pajama bottoms. "If I really wanted to spoil your fun, I could get you all worked up and then just leave you high and dry. How would you like that?"

Jeff shook his head vehemently. "No Matty. Don't do that. I want to have fun."

I saw the look on his face and it was too cute to resist. I knew there was no way I could ever get him worked up and then just leave him hanging. I would be way too damn hard to even begin to think of doing that. I began to kiss him, having every intention of having some fun before we had to leave. But as fate would have it, this would be a sex free morning.

Our door was kicked open violently, causing me and Jeff to separate as we jumped out of our skins. Connor came barreling in and immediately jumped on our bed and buried himself under our covers. "Save me!" he commanded. "Evil is coming! It's going to get me!"

I was totally confused (and sexually frustrated). "What the hell are you talking about? What evil is coming?"

Cooper came storming in and he was covered from head to foot in green paint. "You little fucker!" he shouted as he reached under our blankets and yanked Connor out by the hair. "What the fuck did you do that for?"

Connor tried to look innocent. "I didn't mean to!" he whined. "It was an accident!"

"How do you accidentally toss paint on me? Can you answer me that you fuckhead?"

"I was throwing paint at the wall! You were just in the way!"

James came in at that moment and grinned at me and Jeff. "Would you two stop staring at my kids like they're aliens and get your asses moving? I want to go get something to eat."

With the morning sex officially ruined, we had James get Connor and Cooper out of the room so we could get dressed. Once Cooper took a shower to get some of the green off of him, we all (this was including Mark and Glenn) went to get some hamburgers before we went to the arena. James was more stable now, but I still tried to keep some distance between him and Jeff. I just couldn't bring myself to trust him completely with my Jeffey.

When we got to the arena, Jeff and I found out he was scheduled to wrestle Chris. That really didn't set well with me. Honestly, the last thing I needed was for Jeff and Chris to be alone in the ring together. Chris was still on the we humiliated him trip, and he obviously was completely disgusted with our relationship. "I don't want you to go out there tonight," I told Jeff as we put our stuff down in our locker room. "I want to go to Teddy Long and see if we can get the match changed."

Jeff sighed and shook his head. "I'm not afraid of Chris," he informed me. "I've beat him before and I can do it again tonight."

That didn't really put me at ease. Chris had been a loose cannon lately and I didn't trust him not to hurt Jeff. But Jeff absolutely refused to let me get him out of the match. He truly believed he could take Chris himself. So despite my better judgment, I didn't try to get him out of the match. I just continued to worry in silence, and then once he left the room to go out for his match, I started worrying out loud.

"He shouldn't even be doing this," I told Mark. "He needs to stay away from Chris. Jericho is completely delusional and he's out to get Jeff. Something bad is going to happen."

James raised his eyebrows. "Wow, I'm glad you have so much confidence in Jeff's abilities. I'm sure he'll be glad to know you doubt him against Chris."

"I don't doubt his abilities!" I growled. "I just don't think that Chris is going to fight fair."

"Of course Chris isn't going to fight fair," Mark pointed out. "He's a dirty rotten bastard. But Jeff's a grown man and he wants to try to handle this on his own. I say we should let him do it."

I grumbled under my breath about serial killers and their insensitive lovers as I watched the match unfold. It was a back and forth contest that was getting the crowd going. Jeff was doing really well for himself, and he almost had Chris beat several times. But at one point, Chris bailed out of the ring and Jeff tried to plancha after him. Chris moved out of the way, causing Jeff to land on the floor with a hard thud. That immediately got my worried meter all jacked up, but it was about to get worse. Chris shoved the time keeper out of the way and picked up the chair he had been sitting on.

"No," I said as I was frozen in horror. "What is he doing?"

"Son of a fucking bitch," James growled. He got out of his chair and started heading towards the door. "Boys, we're going now!"

I began to follow him as Chris started swinging the chair at Jeff. My worry for Jeff made me run faster than I ever had before, and I even managed to beat James and the others out to ringside. I saw Jeff laying on the floor, beaten senseless with the chair and I saw Chris standing above him, looking so smug that it was sickening. I dropped to my knees and put myself over Jeff to protect him. I would have just tackled Chris to the ground and beaten the snot out of him, but James was already behind Chris, and he looked pissed.

"Jeff," I said quietly as I watched James grab Chris by the back of the neck and slammed him head first into the steel post. "Jeff baby, oh God I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Jeff opened his eyes and looked up at me. "Matty?"

"I'm here," I assured him. I felt so guilty that I could have thrown up right then and there. "I'm sorry baby. I knew I should have gotten you out of this match."

"Matt it hurts," Jeff complained. He winced as he tried to move around a little. "He just kept hitting me and hitting me…"

I sighed and hugged him tightly. I couldn't believe I had let this happen. I knew Jericho had to have had something like this in mind, but I let myself fall into a false sense of security. And now Jeff was hurt because of it.

But it wasn't I looked into the ring that I saw Jericho was about to get much worse. Glenn, Cooper and Connor were keeping the referees and security guards back while Mark placed Chris's neck inside the chair. James was on the top rope with a demented gleam in his eyes. There was no way he could be thinking of doing what I thought he was thinking of doing. He was as big as Mark and this wouldn't be pretty. "James--"

I spoke too late though. James jumped from the top rope and purposefully landed directly on the chair. The crowd gasped in shock and disbelief. I could hear the announcers yelling but I couldn't make out the words. I just stared at Chris's prone body.

If he wasn't dead, his career had probably just been violently ended. And even though I felt like he deserved it, I knew all hell would break loose once we got to the back. "Oh fuck," I groaned. "Vince is going to lose it big time."

**XXXXXXXXX**

**A/N: Well James got to Chris finally. His muse is happy. Don't forget to vote on my poll on my profile page if you haven't done so already.**


	17. Chapter 17

Mark's POV

The other wrestlers in the back were pretty shocked by what James and I had done to Chris. They were all gathered around the monitor watching him get attended to by the paramedics. This shit was for real. I had heard something of Jericho's break upon the impact James had made. He was definitely alive, but his career was in serious jeopardy at the moment. And from the look on Vince McMahon's face, so was my career.

James smirked as my furious billionaire boss stormed over towards us. "Don't worry about a thing Marky. I'll make sure he doesn't get you for this."

"You can't kill my boss," I told him. "I know that sounds appealing to you right now, but I can't let you do that. Him turning up dead will attract way too much attention."

"Now why do you say that? Every time I say I'm going to help you, you think I'm going to kill someone!"

"That's because that's your definition of helping," I reminded him. I sighed and turned to Vince, who was getting redder by the second. He hadn't been close enough to hear our little conversation before now. "Vince, there is a very good explanation for what we did."

"I don't give a shit about your explanation," Vince growled. "I don't want to hear it! You took one of our top superstars on Smackdown out for what? That brother fucking former drug addict?"

My jaw dropped in surprised. "You know about that?"

"Everybody knows about it," Vince said. "And it'll be only a matter of time before the media picks up on it. Chris pointed out what kind of scandal it would cause for our company and he said he would take care of the situation personally."

Now I really couldn't believe what I was hearing. "So basically, you sanctioned him beating Jeff with a chair?"

Vince just gave me one of his looks. "He's putting our company in a bad situation Mark. This isn't behavior I can accept."

I looked at James, who was obviously dying to just get at Vince. "You remember what I just said Lawson? Well scratch that. Tell Vinnie Mac exactly what we think of him giving Chris permission to hurt Jeff."

James smiled sadistically and picked Vince up by his throat. Vince immediately started yelling even more. "Damn it, you put me down this instant! I am Vincent Ken--"

"I don't give a flying fuck who you are," James growled, not caring about the scene we were starting to make. "To me, you are nothing more than a fucking asshole who sanctioned a beating to a kid I happen to like. And when something like that happens, I am not happy. And when I'm not happy, people tend to get hurt." He pulled Vince so close that their faces were only inches away from each other's. "Now normally, I don't do this, but I'm in a great mood after breaking Chris's neck. I'm going to let that injury be your warning. If you ever, and I mean EVER dare to sanction another beating like that against Matt and Jeff, or if you try to come after me and Mark for giving Jericho what he deserved, I will come after your entire family. Your wife, your children, your son in law, the grandkids--they will all pay for your stupidity. I am not someone you want to fuck with Vince. I am the devil incarnate, and I will take you down. Do you understand me?"

Vince just looked at him in disbelief. Then he looked at me, obviously questioning whether or not my psychotic lover was serious.

"I wouldn't fuck with him Vince," I said wisely. "He's not kidding around. You pissed off the wrong bastard with that stunt you had Chris pull."

Vince continued to look back and forth between us, obviously sizing up how serious we were. When he realized that we were not fucking around with him, he tried to nod, even though James still had him by the throat. "Alright," he said. "I'll leave the situation alone. But if it causes trouble--"

"You still will leave it alone," James growled. He tossed Vince up against the wall, laughing as the old man bounced off against it and landed with a hard thud on the ground. "I don't care if they have sex on top of your car. You will leave them the hell alone, do you understand?"

I winced as James kicked Vince in the face before we got a nod out of him. "Did you have to do that? We don't know what he would have said now?"

"If he knows what's good for him, he'll mind his own fucking business," James growled. "I'm not putting up with his intolerant bullshit."

I chuckled. "You know, for a serial killer, you are quite the liberal crusader."

"I know I am. I can't help it. It's what I do."

XXXXXXXX

Jeff's POV

I winced as Glenn and Matt helped me put ice packs all over my body. Chris had hit me over ten times with a chair before Matt and the others had gotten out there to save me. I was sore as hell, and even though I knew the pain would go away eventually, it still didn't make me feel better. "I hate him," I complained as I tried to adjust myself on the couch. "Damn it, this hurts."

"I know it does baby," Matt said. He kissed my cheek gently. "Cooper is going to get you some Ibprofin so some of the pain will go away."

Connor sat down at my feet and started playing with my shoelaces. "He's good at getting medicine. He got the medicine to make my daddy all better really quick and now Daddy not so crazy now."

Glenn frowned at the childlike man. "You're not tying those things together so he'll fall when he gets up, are you?"

"No, I only do that to you Glenn," Connor replied with a smirk.

Cooper came back with the medicine and a bottle of water. "Sorry it took so long," he said as he handed them to me. "The divas were hitting on me. Apparently they can eat me right up."

"How do you know they were hitting on you?" Connor asked. "Maybe they're cannibals and you are on the menu tonight."

"You only think that because you don't have as much game as I do," Cooper said smugly.

I rolled my eyes as I took two of the pills. I wasn't going to say anything to that. Cooper was good looking, but a lot of the divas hit on just about anybody. "Matty I want to go back to the hotel," I complained.

"We have to wait for James and Mark," he reminded me. "They're our ride baby."

Mark poked his head in the room at that moment. "Come on people, let's go. James has kicked Vince in the face and we have maybe a couple more minutes before Stephanie gets here and screeches at us."

I frowned as Matt picked me up in his arms and carried me out of the room. "Why did you do that?" I asked James.

"He was in on it," James growled. "He let Chris hurt you. And he's going to fucking die if he ever pulls something like that again."

I knew instantly that James was not just saying that. He was dead serious about his threat. I sighed and rested my head on Matt's shoulder. Vince must have found out about Matt and I, and he didn't like it. And even with James's protection, I was beginning to get worried that Vince would find a way to make things harder for us. _Or at least he wills until James gets his hands on him again. And then all hell will REALLY break loose._


	18. Chapter 18

Matt's POV

"Are you sure you don't need me to take you to the hospital?" I asked yet again. Jeff and I were back in our hotel room and he was on the bed, wearing nothing but his boxers. I had made him put ice packs all over his body and I wasn't letting him get up for anything. He had protested and fought me over it, insisting he was fine, but I had won in the end.

"I'm fine Matt," Jeff told me. He sounded like he was getting exasperated with me. "Just lay down and cuddle with me. You're all far away and your stupid ice packs are making me cold."

I laid down next to him, but I couldn't force myself to relax. Too many things were going on in my mind. The two brothers who were murdered in Florida, Chris trying to run us down in the parking garage, Jeff getting beaten with the chair, Vince actually giving Chris permission to do that--all of this was weighing heavily on my conscience. It was like all my fears of the possible repercussions of this whole relationship were coming true. I knew that no matter how much I loved him, I could not let him be endangered like this. If stuff kept happening to him, I knew I was going to have to do something drastic that he wasn't going to like.

As if he could sense what I was thinking, Jeff put his arm around me and hugged me tightly. "I love you," he said quietly.

"I love you too," I replied. And I really meant that too. I loved him more than life itself, and that was why it killed me to see him all banged up like this.

"You wouldn't hurt me, right?"

I frowned. "What are you talking about Jeff? Why would you even ask me that?"

"Because right now you're thinking about leaving me for my own safety," he informed me. He gave me a look that told me I better not start lying about that because he knew better. He always knew better whenever I tried to lie to him. "And that would hurt me Matty. That would hurt me really bad."

I sighed and stroked his hair gently. "Jeff--"

"It won't change anything," he interrupted, not even wanting to hear what I had to say. "It's not going to make me safer. Chris is just a jackass and Vince has never really liked me because of my past with drugs. He was probably looking for an excuse to get me out of the way and this fit the bill perfectly."

Okay, that was a good point. Damn it, Jeff talking logically was never a good thing because he was so damn cute at it that I always agreed to go along with whatever he wanted. Of course, in this case, I didn't want to leave him at all. I wanted him to talk me out of my need to protect him by leaving him. "I just don't want to see you get hurt like that again," I told him quietly.

"Matty we're wrestlers. Neither of us can guarantee anything to each other." He snuggled up even closer to me and kissed me on the lips. "But we're happy together. We can't let two assholes spoil it for us, can we?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right," I agreed. I kissed him again, not intending to take it any further than that. But of course that meant he was on a different page entirely and he started trying to pull me on top of him. "Jeff wait," I protested. "We can't do this right now."

"Why not?" he whined.

"You're hurt, remember?"

"I'm feeling better. Your kisses have magical healing powers." Jeff pouted his lips and pleaded with me with his eyes, and he looked so damn cute that I couldn't resist giving in.

"Okay, okay," I said as I removed the ice packs from his body. "But if I think for a second that I'm making you hurt any worse than you already are, then we're stopping. End of discussion."

Jeff nodded and watched me eagerly as I removed my clothes and his boxers. Once we were completely naked, he wrapped his arms around my neck and pulled me down for a kiss. I began multi-tasking, kissing him within an inch of his life, making sure to hover at least an inch or two above his body so I wasn't actually laying on top of him and using my hand to reach down at my bag and grab the lube that was in there.

"Maybe we should barricade the door," he said as I put the lube on my fingers. "You know that this is usually the part that James or someone else comes barging in for some stupid reason."

I shook my head as I rubbed my fingers so the lube wouldn't be as cold for Jeff. "I told Mark to keep them all out of here tonight. I told him that you needed rest. Besides, Glenn said they're going to watch a slasher film and James is always distracted by those because he yells instructions to the killers."

Jeff giggled and then gasped as I slid two fingers inside of him. "Oh fuck," he whimpered sweetly. "Matty…"

I prepped him gently, not wanting to hurt him in any way. Once I had him good and ready, I put some lube on my dick and then slid inside of him. Instantly I felt like I always did whenever we made love. I felt like this was exactly where I belonged, and I was a moron for thinking otherwise. Jeff and I fit perfectly together. Nobody had made me feel that way before, not even Evan.

Jeff whined and writhed underneath me, biting and sucking on my neck like a vampire or something. I was being way more gentle than I usually was, but for once he wasn't begging me to go harder and faster. Maybe it was because he knew I wouldn't. Not tonight anyway. Still, I could tell he was enjoying himself. "Matty….oh God Matt…" he gasped out.

I grabbed his cock and began stroking it. "Come for me baby," I told him. I began hitting his prostate over and over again with my thrusts. "Come on, I know you can come for me."

His breathing became labored and his body shook as he came all over my chest and stomach. The feeling of his asshole constricting around my dick triggered my own orgasm and I rode it for all that it was worth, feeling weak and almost dizzy afterwards. Panting for breath, I pulled out of him and laid back down next to him. "Love you baby brother," I said quietly.

"Love you too Matty."

XXXXXXXXXX

James's POV

Some time between the fourth and the fifth _Friday the 13__th_ movies, I ended up falling asleep. I didn't actually know I fell asleep until I woke up three hours later with my head on Mark's chest and both of his arms around me. He was sleeping too, and it made me grin like an idiot. Even after all these years, I was still completely enamored with Mark. He was everything I wanted in a guy, even though he spent half his time threatening to either kick my ass or kill me. I took it as his way of showing affection.

I looked around the room, seeing that Glenn was asleep on the floor and Cooper was asleep on the other bed. There was no sign of Connor though. Knowing exactly what kind of trouble my youngest boy tended to get into, I reluctantly left the warmth of Mark's arms and stood up so I could find him. Luckily, he was right out on the deck of the room, although he was leaning too close to the edge for my taste.

"Connor?" I said I stepped out there to join him. "You okay buddy?"

Connor was gripping the railing so tightly that his knuckles were white. "Something's changing. I can feel it," he sang under his breath. It was a line from a movie we had watched once, but I couldn't tell if he was thinking about the movie or if he was really trying to tell me something.

"Don't do cryptic with me tonight Connor," I said. I grabbed him by the back of the shirt and pulled him away from the railing. "If something is wrong, you need to tell me what it is."

He looked at me with his large eyes that reminded me so much of his mother. "It's not over yet," he whispered. "Things are going to get much, much worse for Matt and Jeff."

I frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"I had a dream. It gave me a bad feeling. Something's going to happen. I don't know what it is, but something's coming. Bad things are going to happen. Pain…hurt…death…" Connor began to cry and laugh at the same time while he went back into the hotel room.

I frowned as I tried to figure out what the fuck that was all about. "Well okay then," I said with a sigh. Even I could hear my own sarcasm. "I'm glad we cleared that right up. It sucks when he's confusing."


	19. Chapter 19

Jeff's POV

A couple of days went by and Matt was still treating me like I was a baby or something. Any thoughts I had of it being cute quickly went away when he started doing it in front of Shane and Shannon. Honestly, the last thing I really needed was for those two to have material to tease me with for the rest of my life. "Mattie please, I'm fine!" I whined as he tried to stop me from getting up and grabbing my own Mountain Dew. "I am not a child! I don't need you to baby me anymore."

"Aw, but it's cute when he does it," Shannon said. He started pinching my cheeks and making faces at me. "Who's the cute little baby? Huh? Who's our pretty baby?"

Shane saw the look on my face and winced. "Shan, you're about to get your hand cut off in two seconds and I'm not going to do a damn thing to stop it."

"Jeff wouldn't do that to me," Shannon said. "He's my friend."

"Well our friendship is going to take an ugly turn if you don't stop pinching my face right this second," I growled.

That made the Prince of Punk stop his evil actions.

Matt just looked at me with a confused expression on his face. "I was just trying to help you Jeff. You don't need to get all mad at me."

I threw up my hands in exasperation. "I'm not mad at you Mattie. I just want to do some stuff for myself now. It's not like Chris crippled me or anything. He just banged me up a little. I'm fine now."

Matt sighed. "I know, but--"

"No! No more buts! There will be no buts here this evening!" I got up and started heading towards the kitchen, but stopped and turned around before I went in completely. "Except you know, when you fuck me in mine later on."

Shannon and Shane groaned. "Damn it Jeff! Just because we're accepting this doesn't mean we want to hear about the sex! There are some lines we're still not willing to cross with you!"

I laughed and grabbed the Mountain Dew from the fridge. "Sorry guys," I said as I came back. "I couldn't help but say it. He's just that good at pleasing me."

Matt turned a bright shade of red while Shannon gagged wildly. Shane decided to do the best thing for his sanity and change the damn subject. "Hey there's this new club in Raleigh opening up called The Cove. I think we should check it out tonight."

I nodded along eagerly. I hadn't had a chance to seriously party in quite awhile. "I'm all for that. What about you Shan?"

"Dude, I'm already fucking there," Shannon informed me. "You just don't know it yet."

All eyes turned to Matt now. He just grinned at us and nodded. "Okay," he said. "I'll go if you guys go."

With that settled, Shannon and Shane went home to go change while Matt and I went upstairs to do the same thing. Matt was done within a matter of minutes because he only changed into a pair of tight fitting jeans and a black t-shirt. I took a little longer however. I knew I wanted to wear my new leather pants, but I couldn't decide what shirt to wear with it. I kept changing shirts over and over again, not satisfied with anything I picked out. "Matt help me," I ordered. "This isn't going well."

Matt sighed and grabbed my blue tank top. "What about this?"

I shook my head. "It's not tight enough. It doesn't show off anything."

He grabbed another shirt. "What about this?"

I looked at him with an offended look on my face. "Are you insane? Do you want me to look fat?"

He groaned and grabbed my black fishnet shirt. "How about this?"

I considered it for a minute before taking it from him. "That works."

He shook his head and watched me put it on. "You're worse than some girls I know, do you know that?"

"Yeah, and I'm prettier than every single one of them," I told him. I kissed him on the lips and smiled. "I love you."

"I love you too. But you do know we have to be careful with the amount of affection we show each other tonight. People do know we're brothers."

I sighed. That was the only bad part about tonight. "I know we do. I'm not dumb Mattie. I don't plan to maul you right there in front of everyone. I'll make sure we're somewhere private first."

Matt rolled his eyes. "Why do I have a feeling that you're going to break that promise?"

I shrugged. "Maybe it's because you're so damn irresistible." I kissed him again before giving him a reassuring look. "Come on Mattie, nobody's going to care what we do. It's not like absolutely everyone in Raleigh knows who we are. I mean, I'll keep my hands to myself while we're in the club, but I want you to know I will do it under protest."

He patted me on the head. "Okay, I can accept that."

We left the house after that, stopping to pick up Shane and Shannon on the way. It took us an hour to get to Raleigh, and once we got to the club, we weren't disappointed. As MVP would say, the place was straight up ballin and we quickly got drunk and had a great time. For the first hour or two, I did managed to keep my hands of Matt. But once we got drunk, he also forgot his discretion and he began giving me little touches that drove me wild. A brush against my ass, standing directly behind me and grinding into me just for a split second, his lips nearly touching me when he tried to say something into my ear…the bastard was just pushing it. I finally had to grab him by the hand and drag him outside into the alley.

"You are terrible," I informed him as I slammed him up against the wall.

He smirked at me. "It was an accident, I swear."

I smirked back at him and kissed him as hard as I could. His tongue immediately went into my mouth and started dueling with mine. I gripped his shirt tightly as he turned us around and pinned me up against the wall instead. Even when he tasted like alcohol, he still tasted good.

"What the hell is this shit?"

Matt and I broke apart and saw about five people standing and watching us. They were all dudes, but it was hard to make out any of their distinct features. I looked at Matt, who had an uneasy look on his face. I gulped and started trying to edge us back to the club's side door. I had a bad feeling that this situation could turn ugly.

"Dude, aren't these two brothers?" one of the other men asked.

"Fuck yeah they are," the guy who had spoken first said. He seemed to be the group's little leader. He had really long reddish/brownish hair that covered a lot of his face, which made it really hard to see who the fuck he really was.

Matt started pushing me towards the door. "Don't keep looking at them," he whispered to me. "We're outnumbered and drunk. We don't need to be getting into a fight."

I nodded and grabbed the handle to the door. The group, who had started to whisper among themselves, got set off by our attempts to just escape the situation. They jumped on us like a pack of dogs, three of them getting Matt and two of them getting me. I immediately started swinging and kicking wildly, hitting one of the fuckers in the gut. The other one punched me in the face, just about breaking my damn nose. I hit him back, so damn drunk that I didn't give a shit that these guys were biggger and stronger than I was. I just wanted to get Matt and get the fuck out of there.

"Jeff run!" Matt yelled at me. He was doing his best to fight off the three guys who were attacking him, although he was fighting a losing battle.

I didn't run though. I jumped right in the middle of the fray, swinging desperately and not giving a shit how many times I got hit in return. I could hear the doors swinging open and suddenly Shannon and Shane were at our side, brawling with our attackers. I could hear the sounds of police sirens in the distance and my hopes began to grow. This shit would end soon. We just had to hold on for a little while longer.

What happened next was completely unexpected. One minute I was punching some guy in the face and the next I felt this terrible pain in my side. I let out a very loud scream of pain and elbowed the guy who caused it in the first place. _Fuck, did he punch me in the kidneys or something?_ I asked myself. _It fucking feels like I got stabbed or something._

That was when I looked down and saw that I in fact HAD been stabbed. The fucking switchblade was still stuck in me. Time seemed to stand still as I just stared at my wound. Blood was coming out of it and it was making me sick to my stomach. I could hear Matt screaming my name but I couldn't see him because everything was turning black, and the next thing I knew, I was falling into a deep abyss that wanted to trap me and never let me go.


	20. Chapter 20

Matt's POV

"JEFF!" I screamed at the top of my lungs as I watched him fall to the ground. The fight was starting to go down now that the police sirens were closer than ever. The bastards who had attacked us in the first place were trying to run away, although Shane and Shannon were tripping any which one of them up that they could get to. But all of that didn't even truly register in my brain as I ran to Jeff's side. All I could focus on was the fact that my baby brother had just been stabbed. "Oh God, oh shit," I said as I cradled his head in my lap. "Oh Jeff, baby please don't die, oh shit…"

Shane ran to my side, stripping his shirt off in the process. "Shannon's running to talk to the cops," he said as he knelt down beside Jeff and grabbed a hold of the handle of the switchblade. "He's going to have them call for an ambulance." Then, without warning me, he yanked the weapon out of Jeff and put his shirt over to the wound and began putting pressure on it.

Jeff's eyes snapped open as he let out a yell of pain, but his conscious state didn't last long. "Matt," he gasped out, wrapping his arms around my neck as he started closing his eyes again. "Matt…"

"No Jeff, stay awake," I ordered, my voice shaking terribly and making it almost impossible for me to talk. Shane and I were becoming drenched in Jeff's blood, which just made me want to throw up. This was not right. This had to be some sort of nightmare. My brother could not be dying in this filthy alley right now. "Jeff stay with me baby," I pleaded, not giving a shit who heard me now. The worst had happened already, so what was the point of being afraid? "Don't die on me baby. I need you to live for me."

The minutes dragged on like hours, and I thought an ambulance would never come. When it did finally arrive, Shane and Shannon literally had to drag me back so the paramedics could load him on to the stretcher. I wanted to scream at them to let me go. I didn't want them keeping me away from Jeff. I was afraid that if I was away from him for too long, he would slip away and I would lose him forever. "I want to ride in the ambulance," I said to anyone who would listen. "I want to ride to the hospital with him."

"We know you do Matt," Shannon said. He said this very quickly because he knew I would get even more upset if I didn't get the response I wanted right away. "But you have to stand back a little bit and let these people do their work. They have to have room so they can concentrate on saving Jeff's life."

The minutes continued to drag by, and the feeling that I was trapped in some sort of nightmare world would not go away. I could see the men who had attacked us getting arrested and the large crowd that had gathered all around to see what was going on, but the only thing that truly stood up to me was the sight of Jeff. He looked so small and fragile laying there on the ground, surrounded by men who had grim looks on their faces. I didn't have to be a genius to figure out that the situation was really bad. A major organ or artery or something else could have been hit, causing fatal damage. _No, don't start thinking like that. Jeff is going to be fine. He has to be fine. He can't just die like this. I won't accept that._

When Jeff was finally loaded into the ambulance, I went in with him without really asking for permission. The paramedics didn't really fight me on the issue though. They just got in with me and we were speeding off towards the hospital before I knew it. I grabbed Jeff's hand and held it tightly, praying for my brother's life to whatever higher being that would listen to me. My fingers kept seeking out his wrist, compulsively checking for a pulse. It was there, but it felt weak. Jeff was alive, but I wasn't completely sure if he would stay that way.

When we arrived at the hospital, Jeff was carted off to have emergency surgery and I was forced to wait in the waiting room. I didn't want to just sit down; I needed something to do damn it! But my legs were weak from my worry and my body ached from the fight, so I just sank down in the nearest chair and closed my eyes. I knew I should call Dad and tell him what happened, but I couldn't muster up the strength to. It had always been my job to protect Jeff, and I had just failed miserably. I should have known that the controversial nature of our relationship would lead to one of us getting hurt, but like a fool, I let myself believe otherwise. Now look where that got me.

"Matt? Matt open your eyes."

I did just that and saw Shannon, Shane and two cops standing in front of me. "What?" I said quietly, my voice dull and lifeless. I didn't even have enough emotional strength to sound like a real human being.

"The cops want to ask you about what happened man," Shane explained to me gently. He was still shirtless, and I wondered what happened to the shirt he used to try to stop Jeff's bleeding with. "The guys who attacked you are in custody, but they're denying that they did anything wrong. We need you to speak up and tell the truth."

I sighed, knowing that I had to do it, but not really having the strength for it. "Jeff and I went outside to talk a little bit without having to yell just to be heard," I said, deliberately not divulging the fact that we had really gone to make out like two horny teenagers. I didn't know how any of these cops would feel about incest, and I wasn't about to risk the chance of them letting the bastards who had hurt Jeff get away with it because of it. "The guys just came out of nowhere and began hassling us. I tried to get Jeff and myself back in the club without a confrontation, but they just attacked us from behind. I told Jeff just to run but he wouldn't. He…" My voice trailed off as I flashbacked to the brawl. The look in Jeff's eyes when I told him to run had been a look full of worry, anger, fear and adrenaline. He hadn't wanted to leave my side, and he had fought tooth and nail to protect me.

I didn't realize that I was crying until Shane made the cops back off and Shannon sat down in the chair next to mine and put his arm around me. He seemed to expect me to just break down completely right then and there, but I didn't. I just sat there, letting a few tears fall while staring at absolutely nothing. God, this just had to be a nightmare. There was no way that this could be really happening. I pinched myself several times, but it was no use. This was no dream. It was all really happening.

After about three more hours, a doctor came out to update us about Jeff's condition. Shannon and Shane had to literally pull me up to my feet so I could walk over and talk to him. "How is he?" Shannon asked before I could.

The doctor sighed. "I'm going to be honest with all of you: his condition is still pretty serious. His signs are strong right now, and if he makes it through the night without a sudden turn for the worst, then he should make it in the long run."

I nodded along, still completely numb from the whole ordeal to do much else. "I want to go in and see him," I said.

The doctor began shaking his head. "Sir, I'm afraid that I--"

"I'm not asking for permission," I growled. I was not about to take no for an answer. "I'm telling you what I want to do."

"I wouldn't argue with him right now," Shane said to the doctor. "You don't fuck with the big brother when he gets angry. It's a hazard to your health."

The doctor nodded slowly and reluctantly led me to Jeff's hospital room. "Don't disturb him too much," he told me. "He needs a lot of rest right now."

I nodded to show that I understood and went into the room. What I saw in there broke my damn heart. Jeff was laying there in that damn hospital bed, still completely out and not even responding slightly to me coming in and sitting next to him. He had breathing tubes in his nose and mouth, IV's all over his arms and the constant beeping of the heart monitor told me he was still alive. Feeling guiltier than ever, I kissed the top of his head before burying my face in his shoulder and finally allowing myself to break down completely.


	21. Chapter 21

Mark's POV

Shannon was the one who called me and told me about what happened to Jeff. He knew Jeff and I were close and obviously Matt was too damn distraught to do it himself. I immediately dragged Glenn, James, Connor and Cooper out to the nearest flight to Raleigh, which was where Jeff was at the moment. I knew that this was going to be bad, even if Jeff lived. I knew exactly what Matt was going to do. He would stay by Jeff's side while silently blaming himself for this entire situation. Then once Jeff had recovered from the physical injury he had received, the idiot would break off the relationship and shatter Jeff's heart into a million pieces. He would do it because he would think it would keep Jeff safer and I knew that no matter what I said, there would be nothing I could do to stop him. The idiot was one of the most stubborn people I had ever met in my life.

James tapped me on my shoulder, interrupting my unpleasant thoughts. "You and Glenn are going to be the ones going straight to the hospital," he informed me. "The boys and I have something that we need to do."

I stared at him intently. "You're going to see if you can find the guys who did this, aren't you?" I knew that it was pointless to ask that because I already knew the answer.

"You know it has to be done Marky," he said quietly. "I don't care who these assholes are; they are going to pay for what they did."

I nodded. I whole heartedly agreed with that statement. "Just don't get your stupid ass caught," I warned him. "If I have to come bail you out of trouble, I'll fucking kick your ass to China."

He grinned. "Come on Marky, I'm the expert at this kind of stuff. Do you really think I'll get caught?"

No, I honestly didn't. If anyone was going to find a way to get those thugs out of jail and on to the pointy end of his knife, it would be James. I patted him on the leg and grinned back at him. "Don't worry Lawson, I trust that you'll make me proud. You getting some retribution for Matt and Jeff isn't really my biggest worry at the moment."

James gave me a knowing look. "You think Matt's going to be stupid and break it off with Jeff."

I nodded. "I'll try to talk him out of it, but Matt can be a real dumbass sometimes. If he thinks leaving Jeff is going to be the best way to keep him safe, then that's what he's going to do."

"Oh Jesus, I hate it when people try to be selfless like that," James muttered. He looked positively annoyed now. "Does the idiot even realize he's going to hurt Jeff more in the process by doing that?"

"Probably not," I replied honestly. "Neither of those boys are great at looking at the bigger picture. That's why I want to try to talk some sense into Matt before he does the stupidest thing he can possibly do."

"You're going to fail," Connor spoke up. He was sitting in the seats behind us, but he leaned forward so he could join the conversation. "Everything is falling apart. London bridge is falling down, falling down…"

I frowned and looked at James. "What the fuck is wrong with your boy?"

James shook his head. "I don't know. I'm starting to think he's psychic or something. He told me the other night something bad was going to happen to Matt and Jeff and now this happened."

Well that was just plain fucking creepy. I looked away from Connor and fiddled with the zipper of my jacket. I doubted very much that Connor was actually psychic. He probably just had a bad feeling and he was taking that as a stone cold fact. Still, with everything that had happened, and knowing Matt's nature, I couldn't help but agree with Connor's prediction. London bridge was definitely falling down--only this time, London bridge was Matt and Jeff's relationship. _Hopefully it won't be like Humpty Dumpty and we'll be able to put it back together. Wait, why am I thinking in nursery rhymes? Jesus, I'm the Undertaker for God's sakes! What the hell is wrong with me? That's it, I can't hang around with Connor anymore. He's destroying my badass persona by warping my brain._

XXXXXXXXX

Jeff's POV

As I started to come to, I felt like something was shoved down my throat. It hurt like hell and without even opening my eyes, I grabbed on to it and started pulling at it. I could also feel something in my nose and arms, but I would get them later. Right now, the thing I was pulling out of my mouth was the bigger problem.

"Jeff stop!" a voice said just as I got it out. Someone grabbed my arm and tried to get it back in. "Jeff wait a second."

"No!" I yelled hoarsely. My eyes felt heavy and I wasn't sure if I could even get them open. "Get it away! I don't want it!"

"Jeff calm down baby. It's just a breathing tube. It's not going to hurt you."

Breathing tube? It took me a minute to remember that I had gotten stabbed. Hospital. That's where I had to be. I finally opened my eyes and saw Matt, Shannon and Shane standing around me. "No breathing tube," I begged. "I'm breathing just fine on my own Matty."

Matt stared at me for a moment, the relief that I was alright mixed in with his worry and anger that I had just gone ahead and ripped out something I wasn't supposed to. Sighing finally, he tossed the tube down and hugged me tightly. His eyes were red and puffy, and he had obviously been crying earlier. "Don't you ever do that again!" he growled at me. "Do you understand me?"

I nodded as I hugged him back just as tightly. "Okay Matty," I said quietly. Like I was going to say no to that. It wasn't like I had even wanted to get stabbed in the first place. "Where's Daddy?"

"Vending machine," Matt told me. "He said we're not going to do you any good by collapsing in hunger."

"It's mostly Matt he was worried about," Shane said. "The idiot has refused to eat ever since we got here."

I wondered briefly how long I had been in the damn hospital when something else drove it out of my mind. As Matt released me from the hug and sat back down in the chair right by my bed, something felt very wrong with the situation. Even as he was holding my hand, I could sense that the wheels were turning in Matt's head. He was planning something and I knew right then and there that I wasn't going to like it. "Matty?" I said hesitantly.

"Yeah?" he said quietly.

"You still love me, right?"

He nodded. "Of course I do. I'll always love you."

"Kiss me?" I requested, still not reassured at all."

He did just that, but instead of making me feel better, I just felt worse. A certain piece of knowledge was forming in my mind, and no matter how much I wanted to go away, it wouldn't. Actually, it probably couldn't if it wanted to. What I was starting to realize was almost surely inevitable, and that made it impossible to ignore.

We broke the kiss just as Mark and Glenn walked in. I saw the way Mark looked at us and I knew that he knew the same thing that I did. We both knew that it wasn't going to happen today or tomorrow, but it was going to happen sometime down the road.

Matt was going to leave me to protect me…and then I was really going to die.


	22. Chapter 22

James's POV

I parked my car across the street from the police station and looked at it. I had come to realize a few flaws in my grand plan to come in and get some vengeance for Jeff and Matt. The main one that just could not be ignored was the fact that I had absolutely no idea who the mother fuckers were. I didn't even know what they looked like. "I probably should have planned this out better," I said as I pinched the bridge of my nose.

Cooper nodded. "Yeah, you really should have. How the hell are we even going to get in there and find the guys who stabbed Jeff? I don't think they're going to be let out any time soon."

"At least the one who stabbed Jeff won't," I muttered. "The others will probably make bail by morning." I turned around to look at Connor to see what he had to say about this situation, but he wasn't there. "What the fuck?" I said in disbelief. "How the fuck did he get out of the car?"

Cooper turned around and looked. "His window is down Dad. He must have slipped out when we were concentrating on trying to think up a plan."

"That little fucking shit!" I growled. I hated it when Connor pulled this kind of crap. I looked up through the back window and just happened to see my youngest boy making a beeline for the hardware store across the street. "Damn it to hell! Where does he think he's going?"

"I don't know," Cooper replied. "Let's go find out."

So we quickly abandoned the car and chased after Connor. He kept going on his little merry fucking way like he didn't have a damn care in the world. He got into the store before we could grab him, so we went in after him. By the time we actually caught up to him, he was busy shopping and singing under his breath. "I make a boom boom, I make a boom boom, I make a boom boom hey hey hey hey!"

I frowned. "What the fuck are you babbling about boy?"

Cooper grinned knowingly. "A boom boom? That's perfect!" He grabbed Connor by the head and planted a big old kiss on his lips. "You're a freaking genius!"

I raised my hand. "Uh, excuse me? I'm having a blonde moment here. What the fuck is a boom boom and why does it make Connor a genius?"

Connor got up on his tip toes so he could whisper in my ear. "Bomb," he said as he giggled. "Boom booms are bombs."

I stood there stunned for a minute. Then a smile began to spread across my face. That actually was absolutely perfect. This boom boom idea would save me the trouble of actually having to find the specific cocksuckers who had attacked Matt and Jeff in the first place. Sure it would piss Mark off and a whole bunch of other people would die, but I could deal with the whole Mark thing easily by telling him it was Connor's idea (which wouldn't be a lie this time). And as for the other people that would die…well actually, I just didn't give a damn about them.

I let Connor and Cooper do their little shopping and then we went back to the car after we were done. I drove us to an empty park and made the boys go out behind some trees to build their little boom boom. "Just how big is thing supposed to be anyway?" I asked.

"About the size of the crate we're putting it in," Cooper replied. "Why?"

I put a cigarette in my mouth and lit it (I was a good distance away from them so I wasn't worried about getting blown up. "Well we need a way to get it in the police station without setting anything off."

Cooper chuckled. "Dad, this is just a police station in Raleigh. It's not Fort fucking Knox."

"I'm very aware of that asshole," I snapped. "But one of you is going to need to have a disguise and we're going to need to wrap that crate up in something so people don't actually see the bomb." I took the cigarette out of my mouth and sighed. "You boys stay here until your done making that thing. I think I saw a Wal-Mart within walking distance of this place."

"What are you going to get there?" Connor asked.

"I'm going to buy you a dress, a wig and some wrapping paper. _You_ are going to be a very special delivery girl." I chuckled at the whining noise he made and took off. I didn't have a lot of time to waste after all.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Matt's POV

Despite the doctor's protests, I ended up in bed right alongside Jeff. He had asked me to lay with him and I didn't fight him on the subject. I just wrapped my arms around him and held him tightly, thinking about just how the hell we got here. Just a month ago, I had been happily engaged to Evan, only slightly aware of Jeff's true dislike for my fiancé. God, so much had changed since then. I had found out I had slept with Jeff thirteen years ago, I cheated on Evan three times before the engagement ended, Jeff and I became a couple, Mark revealed his lover to be a psycho, Jeff and Evan got into a fist fight, Chris tried to hurt Jeff so James crushed his larynx and caused paralysis that could possibly be permanent, and now Jeff had gotten stabbed. My life had been completely turned upside down and I didn't know which way was up anymore.

Mark, who was the only one besides me not asleep at the moment. He was staring at me with a strange look on his face. "Do you have any idea just how much Jeff loves you?"

I frowned and looked at him. "What kind of question is that?"

"Just answer it."

I sighed. "Jeff loves me with all his heart and I love him even more than that."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Why are you asking me this Mark?"

"Because I know you," Mark growled. He sat up, obviously ready to get out of his chair at a moment's notice to throttle me. "You're doubting whether it's safe for you and Jeff to be together."

I snorted. "I think this situation proved it isn't safe." I kissed Jeff on the top of the head. "I love my brother very much Mark, and I will do anything to protect him. And if that means that I have to end this for his own safety, I will. What makes me happy is not worth his life."

"And what about what makes him happy?" Mark asked. He got out of his chair and started walking towards me. "Matt, shit happens to good people sometimes. Someone will always find something to hate about a couple, even if their relationship is normal by society's standards. You playing the role of hero is going to cause Jeff more pain than being stabbed ever would."

I glared at Mark. I hated that he was bringing all these points up. He didn't understand what I was feeling right now. "This is easy for you to talk about," I growled. "You don't have to be scared of this happening. Nobody in their right mind would fuck with you and James, and even if they did, you two would kill them with no questions asked." I looked down at Jeff. "I would kill and die for Jeff. I would do it without question. But I will be damned if I ask Jeff to do the same for me."

Mark sighed and shook his head. "Damn it Matt. You have no idea the damage you're going to do."

I was about to reply to that when Mark's phone went off. He growled under his breath and picked it up. "What the fuck?" he muttered.

"What is it?" I asked.

"James sent me a video," he replied. He started pressing some buttons on the phone.

I sighed and got out of bed so I could take a look too. I had a feeling that what I was about to see was bad.

The first thing I saw on the video was the police station. I could hear James and Cooper talking, but it was hard to make out what they were saying. Then someone came running out of the police station like there was no tomorrow. At first I thought it was a woman, but then as the person got closer to James, I realized it was Connor in drag. "What the fuck are they doing?" I asked.

Mark shook his head. "I don't know and I'm not sure I want to find out."

"Okay boys and girls, this is going to get real fun," James said. He was nearly laughing out loud. "And a five…four…three…two…and a one…"

The police station blew up at that exact moment, and all I could see on Mark's phone was the flames. Both Mark and I jumped about a foot in the air, completely shocked by what we had seen. "Oh my God," I said in disbelief. "Did they really just do that?"

"Yup," Mark confirmed. He shook his head. "Damn it to hell, I'm going to throttle James when I get my hands on him. I told him a thousand times no over the top bullshit like this."

I stared at him in shock. "James and his kids just blew up a police station and you only think it's over the top?"

Mark shrugged. "Hey, I never said I was the most compassionate man in the world. I just call it like I see it."

I shook my head and went back to bed with Jeff. Damn psychos needed serious, professional help. I wasn't joking at all about that. I honestly planned to invest some money into that and get them industrial strength therapy. Those fuckers had issues. Sure they were probably trying to help, but damn it, Jeff and I didn't need _that_ kind of help. A whole bunch of innocent people didn't need to die just because of us.

_Of course, they could also have done it just to do it_, I thought to myself as I snuggled back up to Jeff. _Those guys' reasoning skills aren't actually sane. _Oh well, either way, I would deal with that when I see them later. Right now, I'm just going to try to get some sleep and not think about what else I needed to do before someone else got hurt.


	23. Chapter 23

Jeff's POV

James, Connor and Cooper blowing up the police station really did not set well with Matt and Mark. Matt was furious because innocent people had been killed and Mark was pissed because his orders about them not pulling that kind of thing had been ignored. Personally, I could tell that the psychos didn't give a shit what anyone else thought, so I didn't even try to talk to them about it. It would be a complete waste of time. Besides, I had my own problems to worry about.

I had stay in the hospital for three more days after the attack. I hated every moment of it, and I was glad when I could finally go home. But once I got home, things didn't just automatically get better. Even though Matt was by my side almost constantly, I could feel him pulling away from me. His mind was on things I didn't want it to be on, but I was too much of a coward to call him out on it. So I did everything else I could to cling to him and show him how much I needed him. But the conflicted look he got on his face every time I did that was a knife to my heart, and the days passed so slow I thought God was mocking me by making me suffer.

Finally, after one of the longest weeks of my life, I woke up to find Matt not in bed with me. I stayed there and just looked at the side of the bed for about ten minutes before finally getting up and searching for him. "Matt?" I called out as I slowly made my way through the house. Technically, I wasn't even supposed to be walking around that much. When I wanted to move around and stuff, I was supposed to use a wheelchair and that kind of shit. But I was never one to listen to doctors' orders that well, so I just didn't do that unless I had to walk a long distance. "Matt are you here?"

Matt ended up being in the kitchen. He didn't really look at me as I came. He just stared down at his feet, obviously lost in thought about something. "Matt what's wrong?" I asked. I walked over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. "Why are you looking so sad?"

He still refused to look at me. "Jeff, I just want you to know that I love you," he said quietly. "I need you to remember that no matter what I'm about to say or do, I am doing it out of love. Do you understand that?"

I stared at him for a moment. "What are you trying to say Matty?" I asked. I don't know why I tried to play dumb. Maybe I thought he wouldn't do what I thought he was going to do if I acted stupid."

"We need to break-up," he said. "And this isn't a discussion. I am breaking up with you and I'm not changing my mind on this."

"But…but…you can't do that," I objected. I carefully got down on my knees so I could make him look at me. "You can't just bail on me when the going gets tough. Yeah, me getting stabbed was bad, but--"

"Bad? You think it was just bad?" Matt nearly yelled at me. He looked angry that I was trying to downplay what had happened to me. "You nearly died! I nearly got us killed because I started getting all touchy feely in the club."

I shook my head. "Matt, the guys that did that to me…they were probably just begging for an excuse to hurt someone. And you know what? What you're trying to do is completely unfair. I would never break up with you just because some assholes stabbed you for who you're with."

Now it was his turn to shake his head. "I'm trying to protect you here Jeff," he said stubbornly. "You nearly got killed because of this thing between us. And since I'm the one who started it, I'm going to end it."

"I won't let you," I snapped. "You can't do this to me. Thirteen fucking years Matt. That's how long I waited to be with you. I can't go back to not having you again."

"Well you have to," Matt insisted. He was trying to sound mean in an effort to turn me against him. "We should have known that this was going to end badly. Society…it just won't accept our relationship. And if we keep trying, we're going to keep having to pay the price for it."

"Fuck society!" I nearly yelled. "Fuck everyone who doesn't want us to be together! Matt, I love you, okay? I'm IN fucking love with you and I'm going to stay that way to the day I die." I grabbed his hands and held on to them tightly. "Please, PLEASE don't this. Don't leave me."

He stared at me for a long time before pressing his forehead against my own. "I'm going to ask Vince to move me to Raw so we're on different schedules," he nearly whispered. "And I'm going to move away so we're not always so close to each other."

"Matt don't," I begged. I was nearly crying now. "Just stop it and stay with me. You don't have to do this."

He closed his eyes before kissing me one last time and just walking out. Part of me wanted to grab him and force him to stay, but my body wasn't working right. So I just stayed there on my knees, looking at absolutely nothing until I heard the door shut behind him. Then my face crumpled and I slowly laid down on the ground. Matt was gone. Matt had left me. I was all alone.

Again.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

James's POV

What possessed me to get in my car and drive to Jeff's house was beyond me. I was not the type to really check up on people, unless they were Mark or the kids. But Connor and Cooper had been at the zoo and Mark and Glenn had run off somewhere, and they weren't answering their phones. And the feeling I had in my stomach wasn't a good one. I had tried calling Jeff's cell phone but he hadn't answered that, which was inspired me to get in my car and drive out to the middle of fucking nowhere just to see if he was alright.

The front door was unlocked, which never really was a good sign. Country people could not leave the front door unlocked because psychos could get in and kill them (the irony of thinking that made me giggle a little bit). "Jeff?" I called out. "You in here?"

No answer. I searched the place and eventually found him in the kitchen. He was laying under the table, his knees pulled up to his chest and his face buried in them. "What the fuck happened to you?" I asked as I got down on the floor. I tapped him on the shoulder when I still didn't get a damn response. "Hey, Jeffey, come on, it's rude to not answer me."

"He left me," Jeff said in almost a whisper.

"What?" I said, not understanding what the hell he was talking about.

"Matt…left me…he…" Jeff burst into tears that were so violent that his whole body shook in a way that I had never seen a person shake before. He kept crying and crying, and I just sat there, not having a clue what to do for him. Comforting people was not something I was good at. In fact, I had been told on numerous occasions that I was terrible at it. So I decided to keep my mouth shut for once and just rub Jeff's back a little, hoping to God he didn't decide to hug me or some shit like that. I didn't like hugs all that much. At least not when crying was involved. _I am going to kick the ever loving shit out of Matt when I get my hands on him_, I vowed to myself. _He's going to wish he was dead by the time I'm done with him._


	24. Chapter 24

Matt's POV

Right after I broke things off with Jeff, I immediately just took off driving and didn't stop till I was halfway across the state. Unbeknownst to Jeff, I already had a small travel bag packed and I had secretly had Lucas dropped of at my friend Kimo's so he could be taken care of until I got my new place. As I drove, I gripped the steering wheel as hard as I could and tried not to think about what I had just done. Words could not describe how much I hated myself at the moment. Even though part of me believed I did the right thing, another part of me felt like I had made the biggest mistake of my life. Jeff…poor little Jeff…fuck, I had hurt him badly.

_I did what I had to do_, I tried to tell myself. _It's safer this way. I can't be one of the reasons people would target him._

But that reason, which had been so clear to me before and had made so much sense back before this morning, was starting to sound like total bullshit. It sounded like I was just a coward who was too stubborn to not screw up a good thing when I had it. And maybe that was the truth. But my intentions were good, and I wasn't ready to give those up yet. I intended to keep Jeff safe, and if not being with him would do it, then that's what I would do.

_Is it really the right thing to do though?_ I asked myself again. _Or is that what I want to think? Am I just a complete moron who pushes everyone away? Fuck, I should just turn around right now and beg for forgiveness._ But I didn't of course. Part of me was too stubborn to do that, and the rest of me was actually lost. I had gotten so caught up in my thoughts that I hadn't been paying any attention to where I had been driving for the past ten minutes. I kept on driving for a little while longer before sighing in frustration. This was nuts. I doubted it was safe for me to drive as distracted as I was. I pulled into an empty lot and turned off my car. My heart felt way too tight in my chest. Taking deep breaths in an effort to make it ease up, I looked at my phone. I had put it on silent, so I had missed a whole bunch of calls. Dad, Mark, Shannon, Shane, Glenn and three other numbers I didn't recognize. Those probably belonged James, Connor and Cooper. I considered playing the voicemails everyone left me, but I didn't. I wasn't in the mood to get yelled at at the moment.

Fuck, what was I going to do? My head was telling me to keep driving and go through with my plan. It was probably too late to change the damage I had done anyway. But my heart was screaming at me to go back to Cameron and be with Jeff. Growling under my breath, I smacked myself on the head a few times before deciding that either way, I couldn't just sit there. If I wasn't concentrating on driving, it allowed images of Jeff's face to come before me and I couldn't handle that. Not now. I started the car back up and took off again, just determined to drive until I figured out what the fuck I was going to do. _Keep going or go back? Keep going or go back? Fuck, I don't know. I'm a moron. God, I just hope Jeff's okay right now._

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Mark's POV

Things had broken down at Jeff's house. James called me and said Matt had left, so I immediately grabbed Glenn and rushed over there. Connor and Cooper arrived not too long after we did. We found James placing Jeff on the couch and attempting to slap him out of the catatonic state he was in. I got mad at him for slapping Jeff, so I smacked him. Then he got pissed at me so he tackled me and we wrestled on the ground until Glenn grabbed a broom and started beating us with it. Then he yelled at us about pulling this stupid shit when Jeff needed us. That made me stop, although James took the liberty of pinching me a few times before Glenn whacked him with the broom again. And while this was going on, Cooper took the liberty of grabbing Jeff's phone and making some calls of his own. He ended up calling Gil, Shannon and Shane, and they all came over to see if they could help Jeff in anyway.

"Jesus, he looks so broken," Shannon said. He was standing by Gil, who looked worried out of his mind.

I nodded. Jeff was just sitting on the couch, staring down at his lap. He wasn't even crying; I think he had slipped into a kind of shock, which wasn't good at all. I walked over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. "Jeff? Kid? Can you talk to me?"

No response. Jeff didn't even seem to know I had touched him. I sighed and looked at James. "What the fuck are we going to do?"

He stared at Jeff for a long time, his face revealing he was cooking up some sort of plan in his demented brain of his. "You're going to stay here with him," he told me. "The boys and I are going hunting."

"Hunting?" Shane repeated in confusion.

"They mean search for Matt," Glenn explained.

Actually, with the mood James seemed to be in at the moment, hunting was probably the more appropriate word at the moment. But I didn't say that out loud. There was no need to get everyone else worried about what James could possibly do to Matt if he found him. I knew Lawson would bring him back in one piece. Nothing would be fixed if Matt was killed. "I'm going to take him to his room," I said, carefully picking Jeff up. "You guys…I don't know. Just stay here."

The others did what I said, rightfully sensing that I was not in the mood to be argued with. I took Jeff to his room and laid him on his bed. "Kid come on, you need to talk to me," I pleaded as I sat down beside him. "Can you at least say something? This quiet thing you have going on is worrying me."

He still didn't say anything to me. He wouldn't even look at me. It was beyond frustrating.

I sighed. This was going to be even harder than I thought. "Jeff I know this is hard--"

"No," he interrupted. "You don't know that because it's beyond hard. Hard is still coming." He closed his eyes and his lip began to tremble. "Hard is still coming. Right now it feels like I'm dead." He buried his face into his pillow and began sobbing. It was still unbelievably loud, even though it was muffled. I sighed and rubbed his back, hating that I couldn't make him feel better. I wanted to give the kid a break because he deserved one badly. First he had to go through over a decade of suffering through unrequited love for Matt, and then he went through hell trying to get Matt away from Evan. Then, to really top the shittiness of the situation, he lost Matt because he nearly got killed by assholes who were dead now, but had Matt convinced that someone else could hurt him because of the damn relationship. And while I understood Matt's fears, they pissed me off and I wanted to kick his ass after James was done with him.

Jeff kept crying for a good half hour or so. When he was done, he looked up at me with pleading eyes. "Get me out of here," he begged. "I can't stay here. I keep seeing him here Mark and it's driving me insane."

I sighed again. The poor thing looked like he was going to fall apart if I didn't give him what he wanted. "Okay," I agreed. "I'll take you to my place. Does that sound good?"

He nodded. He started to sit up when he looked down at the bed. "We made love on this thing you know," he informed me. His face started to crumble again. "I could still smell him on the pillow when I was crying."

I sighed and let him bury his face in my lap. Fuck, I was really going to kick the shit out of Matt when James found him. I was not even joking at the moment.


	25. Chapter 25

Mark's POV

It's been two weeks since Matt left. James and the boys haven't had any luck finding him. It was like he had vanished off the face of the earth. James was starting to go from angry to possibly being worried, which isn't good at all. He thinks Matt might have driven off recklessly and wrecked and died. Another theory he's entertaining is that Matt committed suicide. Honestly though, I'm more worried about Jeff doing that though. I have him back at my ranch in Texas, and he doesn't eat or drink unless I force him to. He must have lost a good ten or twenty pounds by now. All he does is lay in bed, crying or staring into space like a zombie. It's just about the saddest thing I've ever seen in my life.

I walked into the bedroom he was in and leaned against the doorway. Glenn was in there with him and my younger brother was trying to do anything to get some sort of reaction out of him. But I knew it was no use. Today was going to be one of the catatonic days.

"Come on Jeff," Glenn pleaded. He shook Jeff's shoulder in a way that wasn't exactly gentle. "You can't keep doing this to yourself. We're going to find Matt and make him realize what an idiot he is. We'll have him back in your arms in no time."

Jeff didn't say anything. He just stared at the ceiling blankly. His hair dye was fading out and his face was worn out and tired. Matt leaving him had taken all of the life out of him. At first he had been too miserable to be much help in the search and now he was too weak from hunger and dehydration. It seemed like no matter which way we turned, he was never going to win.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I walked down the hall so I could talk to peace. "Hello?" I said, expecting it to be James or the boys.

"Mark, it's Evan."

I frowned. Why the hell would Evan be calling me? "Uh hi," I said slowly.

"Look, just listen to me for a second. I think I might know where Matt is."

My jaw dropped. "Bourne, if you've known this entire time and you've been taking this as an opportunity to not say anything just to make Jeff miserable, then so help me God, I will--"

"I didn't know before today, I swear!" Evan said quickly. "Just hear me up. I've got this really crazy and reclusive aunt up in Vermont. She lives in this cabin that's literally in the middle of nowhere and rarely comes out of her own house. Well she got arrested for causing a disturbance in a grocery store this morning and she called me and told me that someone needed to go to her cabin and get some medicine for Marty, which is what she calls Matt because she can't ever remember his name."

I leaned back against the wall. "Matt's sick? With what?"

"I have no idea. She's about as far from right in the head as someone can get without being institutionalized. For all we know he could have been sick there for days and she might not have even have noticed before today."

"Fuck," I cursed. This was bad. "Evan, if I give you James's phone number, could you call him and tell him how to get to your aunt's house? He's up in Jersey seeing if that producer of the Hardy Show knows where Matt is. He can haul ass to Vermont if you can at least give him some sort of direction."

"Yeah I can do that," Evan said.

I quickly gave him James's phone number and let him go. Sighing in frustration, I banged my head against the wall a couple of times. This could possibly turn out to be very bad. "Fuck Matt, you better be okay," I muttered. "I know I swore to kick your ass for all of this, but I might just let you off the hook a little if you promise to be okay when James gets there."

XXXXXXXXXXX

Matt's POV

I tossed and turned uneasily. I was drenched in sweat but I was freezing cold at the same time. Every time I coughed, I could feel fluid in my lungs. I needed help. Clara. Where was Clara? Evan's aunt was freaking nuts. I remember him saying that. Fuck, did she abandon me? Did she leave me in this house that had no phone and was in the middle of nowhere? Damn it, it would suck if she did.

I pulled the covers over myself more tightly. I wasn't supposed to be here right now. After I started driving again the day I left Jeff, I got lost in a mindless fog. I just drove and drove, debating whether to keep going or turn around. When I finally made the decision to turn back around, I got into an accident. Clara found me nearly wrapped around a damn tree. I was in the middle of an empty road, and instead of getting me an ambulance, she pried me out of the car and dragged me to her house. I was out for several days according to her, and she had to tend to all my injuries. When I woke up, I was pretty much sick. She had dragged me through the rain and I had to have been soaked to the bone by the time she got me to her frigidly cold house. I swear, the woman kept it at like sixty all the fucking time. It was no wonder I was sick.

I groaned and curled up into a little ball. God I am an idiot. I never should have left Jeff. I abandoned the one person I loved most in this world and now the universe was kicking my ass because of it. I could see him from time to time but every time I reached out to touch him, he vanished into thin air. It was enough to make me want to cry. I wanted my Jeff but I couldn't find my cell phone. It was probably still in the wreckage that was my car. Wait, my car. Had anyone found it? Did anyone get contacted about it? Did Clara ever get a hold of Evan? Would Evan tell Jeff where I was? And fuck, why was I so cold and hot at the same time? I closed my eyes tightly. Damn it, I was going insane. I needed to get out of here. I needed to get back to Jeff. But first I had to pass out because my head was spinning. "Jeff," I whispered as I drifted off into the blackness. "Jeff need you…"

XXXXXXXXXXX

James's POV

Cooper tried to get us a flight to Vermont but all the airlines going close to that area were down. It fucking figured there would be some sort of mass problem with that shit when we needed to get there. So I just said fuck it and I drove us there. By some sort of divine intervention (and believe me, I never thought something like that would happen to me) we did not get pulled over. I didn't know how I managed it, because I probably went a hundred miles an hour the entire way.

"Daddy, why is Matt sick?" Connor asked. He was chewing on the sleeve of his shirt. His simple, more child like didn't understand why I couldn't stop right now and get him candy, which was why he was doing the sleeve thing and it was why he hadn't talked to me in the past hour.

"That's just what Evan's aunt said," I told him. We were in Vermont now and I was driving faster than ever. "And she wouldn't tell the cops about him or take him to the hospital because she's crazy and paranoid and thinks they're all out to get her."

"Well if she's as loony as Evan says she is, they probably do need to get her and keep her," Cooper said. "Fuck, this could be really bad Dad. Matt's been missing for two weeks and we have no idea just how long he's been sick. If he hasn't even been able to contact any of us--"

"Cooper, please shut up," I requested. I didn't need him to tell me how bad this could possibly be. I could think of all those options all by myself.

Now I'll give credit where credit is due. Evan gives some pretty good fucking directions. I drove through a couple of towns before getting on to this gravel road that made me feel like I was driving straight into a horror movie or something. If I wasn't a serial killer, I would have been creeped out. But I was a serial killer, so I just kept driving until there was no more road. "Okay, everyone out," I ordered. "We have to walk from here."

The boys groaned, but quickly silenced themselves when they saw the look I gave them. With them quiet, I led them down a dirt path that was completely surrounded by trees and way too tall grass. _This Clara bitch is definitely a loony bird to want to live out here. This is fucked up._

It took like twenty fucking minutes, but they managed to find the house. James went right up to the front door and kicked it open, not even checking to see if it was locked. "Matt!" he yelled as he stepped into the old, run down, vine covered house. The place was absolutely freezing; someone had definitely left the air conditioner running way too low. "Matt!"

"Fucking hell, I'm already having shrinkage," Cooper complained.

I ignored that little comment and ran up the stairs. I started opening doors, not stopping until I found the room Matt was in. "Fucking shit," I groaned under my breath. Matt did not look good at all. His head was all bandaged up and the only color in his face were from his bruises. He looked like he was not only sick, but he had survived a damn car wreck.

"Jeff," Matt said weakly. "Jeff…sorry…love you…"

I went over to the bed and gently scooped Matt into my arms. The younger man's skin was unbelievably hot to the touch. Fuck, he was really fucking sick. Being careful to mind the bandaged ribs and chest, I carried Matt out of the room. "Cooper! Connor! We have to go haul ass to a hospital boys! Matty here looks like he has some pneumonia or some shit!" _Fuck, this is probably going to be the last thing Jeff needs to hear. Damn it to hell Matt, you are an idiot. I'm still kicking your ass later after you're better, I swear to fucking God._


	26. Chapter 26

Jeff's POV

I didn't know how much longer I could ignore Glenn's attempts of forcing me to cheer up. It was very annoying and distracting to my brooding. Why couldn't he understand that without Matt, I had no reason to cheer up? Matt was everything to me. He was my rock and without him, I was drowning in my own despair.

Maybe this was the universe's way of kicking my ass for one of two reasons. One would be because maybe Matt was right and two brothers were just not supposed to be together. But then I remembered that Connor and Cooper had been in a relationship for years and they were still going strong. So maybe it was for the other reason: it was for waiting for so damn long to actually get the balls to express my feelings for Matt. I let myself suffer for years and when I finally couldn't take it anymore, I caused Matt to break Evan's heart and had our relationship inadvertently end Chris's career (although I refused to take full responsibility for that because he started it and James finished it).

I groaned and buried my head into my pillow even more. I couldn't keep thinking like that. I was driving myself insane. Maybe I was wrong to wait until Matt was engaged to someone else, but I hadn't been able to help myself. The fear of losing him to someone else finally overcame the fear I had of him hating me because of my love for him. And besides, if the locker room rumors were true, Evan had Jay now, and I was all alone. Fucking Bourne was probably laughing his ass off at the moment.

Mark came barging in and nearly took the door off its hinges as he did so. "Come on Jeff," he said in a strained voice. "We've got to get going. We have to leave right now."

I didn't answer him. I just laid there, not wanting to move at all.

"Why?" Glenn asked because I wouldn't. "What's going on?"

"James found Matt. He had to take Matt to the hospital. Matt's really sick."

I sat up so fast that I managed to startle Glenn. "Matt's sick?" I asked, my voice cracking at the very thought of that.

Mark nodded. "Yeah. James took him to a hospital up in Vermont. They're treating him for car crash injuries and pneumonia. James said he keeps saying your name over and over again."

I leapt out of bed, nearly falling face first on the ground in the process because my legs were weak and shaky. I slipped on the first pair of shoes I saw, not caring that they weren't actually mine. "Well then let's go," I said. "I want to go right now."

So we went. On the way to the airport, Mark told me it was Evan who heard from his aunt about Matt and then he called Mark, who had him call James. I was surprised to find that out, but it was nothing I wanted to dwell on for too long. Matt was my priority, not figuring out why Evan chose to help us. I could deal with that after I was sure that Matt was okay.

The trip to Vermont took a lot longer than I wanted it to. I think I just about drove Mark and Glenn nuts with my constant fidgeting and foot tapping, but once again, I could not help myself. My heart was beating so fast in my chest that it was hard for me to breathe. That was how worried I really was about Matt. Just thinking about how long he could have been sick and hurt and not getting the help he needed was killing me.

When we finally landed in Vermont, Connor and Cooper were waiting at the airport for us. "The doctors think Matt will be okay eventually, but he's still pretty sick," Cooper said before I could ask. "That fucking house we found him was freezing cold. Connor's been sneezing since we left the place, so it's no fucking wonder Matt got as sick as he is."

"Take me to him," I demanded. "Right now."

"Sure thing Jeffey!" Connor said happily. He grabbed me by the hand and literally dragged me to the car. For a kid who looked like he weighed less than a hundred and fifty pounds, he was stronger than he had any right to be.

I grunted as I was basically forced into the back of the car with him. "Damn Connor, you didn't need to do that," I said as I took my wrist back from him and rubbed it a little bit.

He just smiled insanely. "I know, but I did, so deal with it."

Cooper got into the driver's seat, Mark got up front with him and Glenn joined Cooper and me in the backseat. It was a fifteen minute drive from the airport to the hospital. For me, it was too long, but I kept my mouth shut. I didn't think telling the son of a serial killer he wasn't driving fast enough for me. It just didn't seem like it would be a smart thing to do. "What room is Matt in?" I asked as Cooper pulled into the hospital's parking lot.

"Room 115."

With that answered, I jumped out of the car before it was stopped all the way. Mark yelled at me but Connor just laughed and jumped out after me. "Come on Jeffey!" he shouted eagerly. "I'll show you the way."

I wasn't going to say no to that. We ran into the hospital, nearly knocking over some innocent bystanders in the process. I muttered some half assed apology but I just kept going until Connor got me to where I wanted to be.

James was sitting by Matt's bed when I entered the room. "You know, this place should think about updating their magazine collection," he said nonchalantly. "I think this was from three years ago or something."

I ignored his little comment and walked over to Matt. My brother was sleeping, and it looked like the past couple of weeks had been just as hard on him as they had been for me. I wrapped my arms around him gently and kissed his lips. "Mattie?" I said quietly, almost hating to disturb him, but wanting him to at least know I was there. "Mattie it's me. I'm here."

Matt made a little noise before opening his eyes. "Jeff?" he whispered hoarsely.

I nodded. "I'm here Mattie." I kissed him again, not caring whether I could get sick or not from him.

"I'm sorry," he told me. "I never should have left you. I was being stupid."

I shook my head. "It doesn't matter now. We're together again and that's all that matters."

He swallowed heavily. "I was trying to come back to you. I realized I was being stupid but then I got in the wreck. I've missed you so much but I wasn't able to even get to a phone to talk to you."

"Well I'm here now," I said. I climbed into bed with him and held him in my arms. "I just want to forget about these past two weeks. They were the worst ones of my life. I just want to stay here with you and help you get better."

Matt smiled just a little bit. "That sounds good to me."

"Okay, this is getting too mushy for me," James said. He grabbed Connor and dragged him out of the room. "Let's leave the two love birds alone."

I smiled as Connor whined about wanting to stay. The boy was like an overgrown child. I kissed Matt again and then watched him drift back off to sleep. He needed his rest, so I just watched him sleep, knowing that this was exactly where I belonged. And anyone who didn't like it could just go to hell.


	27. Chapter 27

Matt's POV

I was in the hospital for about a week before I was finally released. Jeff never left my side unless Mark and James forcibly dragged him away so they could make him take a shower and get a fresh change of clothes. During the entire time I was at the hospital, I apologized over and over again for leaving him. And he forgave me without even thinking twice. God, I don't deserve him. I love him to death and I'm thankful that I have him back, but I really don't deserve him after what I put him through.

Once I was released from the hospital, Jeff and I went back home to Cameron. He moved all his stuff into my place so we could officially live together. In light of that, Mark, James, Connor and Cooper all decided to make Jeff's house their official North Carolina home. They weren't planning on staying indefinitely (the place just wasn't big enough for all four of them and their insanity to live comfortably--and besides from that, James and Cooper were just not country boys at all) but they made keys for themselves so they could go in any time they decided to visit.

One morning, a few days after we had gotten back home, I woke up earlier than Jeff did and I called Evan. If he hadn't made the decision to call Mark and James after he received the call from Clara, there was a good chance I still would have been trapped in her house. And with the way I had been sick, I had come too close to dying when I did get found, so I didn't want to think about what would have happened if Evan hadn't called.

"Hello?" Evan said sleepily when he answered his phone.

"Hey, it's me," I said.

"Oh, hi Matt. How are you feeling?"

"I'm doing a lot better now. I just wanted to call you and say thank you, for you know, telling Mark and James where I was at. I know after what I put you through, I didn't deserve your help."

"You did Matt. You needed help."

"Yeah." I sat down on the chair. "Evan I'm sorry for how things ended between us. I really fucked when it came to you."

"Yeah, you really did," Evan agreed. "But time is healing that wound and I want things to be okay between us again."

"What about you and Jeff?"

He hesitated a little bit. "I don't know about that. Maybe we both need more time before that conversation goes down."

"Okay," I said. "I get that." We made some small talk before hanging up. Then I got up and looked around my kitchen. I felt the urge to do something nice for Jeff. "Maybe I'll give him breakfast in bed," I said as I started looking through the cupboards. "He'll like that."

"Or maybe you should go above and beyond that. I mean, you did leave him and made his life hell for two weeks. You need to make up for that."

I let out a yell and jumped as I spun around. "James, god damn it! What did I tell you about coming in without warning?"

James just grinned and shrugged. "I don't know. I wasn't listening."

I rolled my eyes. Why was I not surprised by that?

The psycho patted me on the shoulder. "Now look, breakfast in bed is a good idea, but I think you should go above and beyond that. Let me and the boys take him while you get things ready. Buy him presents, make him dinner, learn Karma Sutra, go balls to the fucking walls you stupid dope."

"Hey, don't call my Matt a stupid dope!"

James and I looked over to see that Jeff had wandered into the room. His hair was sticking up all over the place and he still looked tired. "Hey baby," I said as I went over to him and kissed him. "How do you feel about spending some time with James and Mark today?"

Jeff pouted. "I wanted to spend time with you though."

"We will spend time together," I assured him. "I just need you to leave for awhile because I'm going to plan something special for you."

He grinned. "Something special huh? Can you give me a hint on what that's going to be?"

"No, because that would ruin the surprise. Now go get dressed and go off with James. I have a lot of planning to do." And a lot of that planning had to do even coming up with some good ideas. I looked at James after Jeff left, and the older man just smiled pleasantly.

"You'll thank me for this idea later," he assured me. "Trust me, as long as you don't screw this up, you'll be having a very good night tonight."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Jeff's POV

Spending the day with Mark, James and the boys wasn't too bad. Connor made me show them all through the woods and stuff, which got James and Cooper bitching about tree branches scratching them and bugs biting them. Although the two of them did enjoy going dirt biking afterwards, which the same could not be said about poor Mark. He was doing fine until James decided to crash into him just to see what would happen. Luckily nobody was seriously injured, but Mark proceeded to cuss so much and slap the fuck out of James so hard that Lawson actually apologized. And even when Mark calmed down, he was still completely cranky and I was glad when Matt called and said he was ready for me to come see my surprise.

"Oh Matty!" I called out as I let myself into the house. I grinned as I smelled something really good coming from the kitchen. "Matty I'm home!"

Matt poked his head out of the kitchen and motioned for me to join him. "Come on, dinner's ready," he told me. "I want you to eat it before it gets cold."

I went in there and found that he had some chicken parmesan just waiting for me on the table. The lights in the room were dimmed down, so the majority of the light was coming from the candles that were on the table. He also had set some roses by my plate. "Matt you are way too much," I said as I kissed him. "You did not have to do this."

"I wanted to though," he replied. He pulled my chair out for me and made me sit down. "I wanted tonight to be special." He sat down next to me and grabbed the bottle of wine that was on the table. "Now let's eat up. I have some presents for you too."

Well who was I to argue with him? We ate and got kind of buzzed from drinking the entire bottle of wine. I could barely keep my eyes off of him as I ate. The candlelight made him look even more gorgeous than usual, and as soon as he was done eating, I couldn't take it anymore. I got out of my chair and got right on his lap. "Take me upstairs Matty," I whispered in between kisses. "Take me upstairs and ravish me."

He kissed me back and slipped his hands underneath my shirt. "What about your presents?"

"I can have them later. Right now, I want you to fuck my brains out."

I didn't have to ask twice. He wrapped his arms around me tightly as he got up and carried me to our room. I kissed him the entire way, making it so hard for him to see that we bumped into the walls a couple of times. Eventually we did make it in there, and Matt laid me down on the bed before stripping both of our clothes off for us. "I love you," he whispered as he got on the bed with me.

"I love you too," I replied, moaning slightly as he began to kiss his way down my body. His touch was driving me crazy (in a good way of course). "Oh Matty…"

He grinned at me just a little bit before taking my cock into his mouth. He sucked on just the head at first, but then he took me in completely, intentionally gagging himself and making me buck my hips up uncontrollably.

"Matt…oh Matty…" I moaned loudly. I grabbed his hair and held on to it tightly. His mouth felt absolutely amazing around my dick.

He kept sucking me, humming a little bit and running his tongue along the slit to really get me going. Once I started nearing my release though, he took his mouth away and grinned. "I want you to come when I'm inside of you," he whispered after he kissed his way back up my body.

I grinned and wrapped my legs around his waist. "Well you better fuck me hard then," I told him. "Because I can't hold on too much longer."

He grinned back before kissing me hard and entering me quickly. We both let out muffled moans and I closed my eyes as I pulled him closer to me. The way he felt inside of me was beyond wonderful. We fit perfectly together. "Open your eyes," Matt said as he kissed my jaw. "I want you to look at me."

I opened my eyes and I did my best to keep them open. It was probably our most intense love making session ever. A couple of time I closed my eyes because the jolt of pleasure that he gave me when he hit my prostate was too much to take, but I quickly opened them again. "Matt…oh God…fuck…" I panted.

"Jeff…fuck…love you so much," Matt gasped.

We both came at the same time, and I hugged him tightly to me when he collapsed on top of me. I was in no hurry to have him get off of me. I had already lost him once, and now that I had him back, I wasn't going to let him go ever again. I knew he felt the same way about me, which made me feel happier than I ever had before in my life. "I love you Matt," I said as he rolled off of me.

"I love you too Jeff," he said. He pulled me into his arms and held me tightly.

"Forever?"

"Forever and ever."

"Awesome." And with that, we both drifted off to sleep.


End file.
